Text Features Galore!

Has anyone ever been working on a post, had to stop quickly and accidentally hit PUBLISH instead of save? Oh, gosh that just happened to me. Sorry if any of you read my un-edited, half complete version of this post! Yikes!

Anyways, on to Text Features...

From what I can tell, students learn the most about text features in 2nd and 3rd grades. I think text features are HUGELY important and students need to know how to use them in order to be successful as teens and grown ups. My kiddos always seem to LOVE nonfiction books so this is a fun skill to teach and they get really interested in it!

Like I've told you guys earlier, with the new standards & no new curriculum, we have been given some freedom on how we teach each standard. I  had SO much fun thinking through how I am going to introduce and teach this standard to my kiddos. We spend two weeks on each "skill" so I came up with some fun activities to get us through each day. I WISH that I had a classroom I could go into right now and implement everything so that you guys could see everything in action... but its summer. So, be expecting an update when we come across this standard in September! 

I plan on introducing all 13 text features over the course of three days. I plan to create an anchor chart, show examples, and then my students will complete their very own text feature book. There is a page for each text feature and we will fill in the blanks together as we learn about each feature. I liked the idea of this book so that my students can store it away and reference it throughout the year. (Hopefully they can keep up with it! hah!) To go along with the book, I created posters and mini-posters that I will display on our skill bulletin board.

After spending a few days looking at examples and putting together our books, we will practice finding/ the skills through a scavenger hunt and center activities to practice identifying the skills. Centers include matching games and cut and paste fun. 

To conclude our unit, I plan on letting my students create their own nonfiction  book where they will use all of the different text features they have learned about. In my packet, you will find templates for your students to use, a checklist, and a graphic organizer. I might let my students work in partners, because this is a pretty detailed project for so early in the year. Students will research an animal, and create their book based on the template I created. They will create an index, glossary and title page. They will also use illustrations, photographs, charts/graphs, and captions. I liked the thought of creating a book because it would be great for writing time as well!

Check out my product HERE! 

As always, I will give one person this new product for FREE! Just leave me a comment and I'll pick one person to send it to! Happy Tuesday!

P.S. I'll be sending my journal prompts to Melissa for commenting on my last post! =)