It’s beginning to look a whole lot like Christmas! Well, it doesn’t quite feel like Christmas yet, but it does feel like it here in Missouri…burrrr! Anyway, we have been working more on doing close reads during our shared read aloud time. We usually follow Journeys. However, we have realized that Journeys does not always provide the deep text we need to take our students further. This is only our third “official” close read so not an expert quite yet 😉
This week we chose a nonfiction text,A Day in the life Polor Animals: Reindeer. We thought it would be fitting as the kids are currently obsessed with anything that deals with Santa! Surprisingly only a few have wanted to list “fly” as a fact about Reindeer! Of course I let it slide! 🙂
I purchased the below book from Amazon {click the link to view}. I love the book as it provides just enough detail- not to little and not to much. The author, Katie Marsico offers several nonfiction texts very similar to this one.
Here is what our close read lesson plan looks like {the easy to explain version}.
Monday– a cold read- little stopping, read through the text for enjoyment
Tuesday– read on the smartboard, circling unknown words and charting vocabulary words.
Below is our vocabulary chart. We also made an action for each word 🙂
Wednesday– Text dependent questions focusing on text features: headings, labels, & maps
(1) How do the labels help you to learn more about reindeer?
(2) Why does the author put these BIG words at the top of some pages?
(3) How does this map (pg. 8) help us to learn more about reindeer?
Thursday– Text dependent questions focusing on text features: table of contents & photographs
(1) What is the table of contents? How does it help us?
(2) Why did the author choose to use photographs instead of drawings or illustrations?
Friday– a commutative assessment of the close read. The students will label a reindeer- hooves, antlers, nose, & fur.
We also tied in the reindeer study into our writing time. On Tuesday we filled in a can, have, are graphic organizer. The students then used their graphic organizers to fill our their nonfiction reindeer report booklets! See snapshots of those below and be sure to grab the freebie!
Reindeer have antlers.
Reindeer have antlers. They lose them every year.
Reindeer are mammals.
Reindeer can swim to go get food.
A little artist huh? 🙂
Grab this freebie below!
I will be back this weekend! Have a super ending to your week!
Love this! Thanks for sharing about close reading too!
Dirt Road Teacher
Thanks for sharing! Love this! 🙂
Love this- very cute! How did you get the book on your smartboard? I really like that idea.
I enjoyed getting some great ideas to add to my reindeer unit! When I clicked on the free reindeer report, it took me to letter names and sounds writing strip! Maybe it is just my computer! 🙂
Thanks for the great ideas!
You can email me at littlemindsatworkllc@gmail.com and I can send it 😀
Tara