Right after spring break, our students each get a caterpillar and learn about the butterfly life cycle. This is always the best time of the year! Then, throughout April, we further their learning through an insect unit, where our students get to learn about many different types of insects. I decided to create some activities to use when we start the unit! To start out the unit, I had my class read a passage about insects as a class. I usually ask my students to echo read the passage with me the first time around, while we discuss different vocabulary words. Then, I ask my students to read the passage another time with partners. After reading the passage, we go through and answer the questions together and then highlight where we found the answers in our text. I also developed vocabulary cards that I keep in a pocket chart on our vocabulary wall. The words I chose for the vocabulary cards are ones that I knew would come up a lot while learning about different insects. This made it so that I could keep the cards up for the whole month, and just add other words that relate to specific insects when we are learning about them.
Keeping the vocabulary words up on the wall with pictures helps students recognize the words more while they are reading and they can use the words in their writing, as well. Here are some examples of the vocabulary cards. You can use these in a pocket chart as a matching game with the picture, word, and definition, too!
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For the second half of the year, our school has wanted us to put a large focus on comprehension strategies for informational texts. I wanted to make a graphic organizer to help my students remember the information they learned from the nonfiction texts. Since we have started using this graphic organizer, my students have shown so much growth with their nonfiction comprehension skills. I am so proud of their hard work! For each box, I ask my students to draw a picture of something they learned, and then label the pictures. Then, they have a space to write each of the things they have learned from the text.
**Having a space available for my students to draw a picture makes it so that all of my students are able to share what they have learned, even if they are not able to write in complete sentences or spell some of the words.** Click on the picture below to get this freebie for your classroom! :) |
AuthorMy name is Paige. I taught first grade in Arizona for 3 years and am currently in my 6th year of teaching Kindergarten in California. I love creating engaging activities to do with my students! I hope you find these activities to be just as much fun to do with your class! Categories
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