Biography and Text Feature Freebies

This week we began biographies in readers workshop and reports in writers workshop.  Our week began with an introduction to biographies.  Eek!! Wilma Rudolph was so.very.popular!  The kids began their studies with the anthology which featured a wonderful non fiction story about Wilma in time order. By mid week, we were diving into the school wide book of the month: Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the Fastest Woman.  

Writers had a strong focus on text features.  The kids took a keen interest in learning all content thrown their way!  It just so happened that I was offered an opportunity to try Scholastic Magazine for February and March just in time for reports and life cycles.  After reading Beth Newingham's article on Non Fiction Reading Resources, I jumped at the offer.  The magazines are perfect for learning text features and their digital issues would ensure students engagement throughout the entire lessons.  With the now!Board, I was able to display and allow the kids to interact with the magazines whole group.  I decided to focus on timelines.

This article came from Feb 2012 Scholastic Issues.

After reading Wilma Unlimited and observing photos online, we charted a few facts.  The kids went back to their anthologies to pull out the rest of their facts.  With peer and teacher conferencing, kids ordered their dated facts on a timeline and secured them with tape.  Their biographies were the best I've ever seen from 2nd graders.  

I tried to enlarge so that you can read!

To conclude biographies, we ended our week learning about George Washington Carver with our 3rd Grade FCAT Buddies.  Brainpopjr features a wonderful video on their website.  I purchased a membership early this year for a single computer at $8.00 a month.  TOTALLY WORTH IT!!  As a result, we have this cutie patootie door!!!!

Whatcha think?

The kids created a list of words from the Brainpop video to describe George Washington Carver.  They teamed up with their buddies and used a Thesaurus to identify synonyms.  With synergy, Team FCAT developed wonderful vocabulary.  

If you want to subscribe to Scholastic Magazines, you can go to this link here!