Adventures in Nonfiction: A Guided Inquiry Journey

Materials and Technology

Websites

Preparation

 

MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGY

• General classroom supplies (chart paper, several colors of broad markers, fine-tipped markers or colored pencils, writing paper, and copier paper)
  
  
• A large variety of nonfiction books

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WEBSITES

• National Geographic Explorer for Kids
• National Geographic Kids Magazine
• World Almanac for Kids
• The Virtual Body
• Kratt's Creatures
• Ask Kids

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PREPARATION

• All nonfiction books from the classroom library should be identified and isolated from the rest of the books. It would be valuable to have students sort all the nonfiction books by topic categories. (See Book Sorting: Using Observation and Comprehension to Categorize Books, a ReadWriteThink lesson that engages students in sorting books by topic.)
  
  
• Create a "name-drawing" basket by writing each student’s name on a small piece of paper and putting all the papers into the basket. These will be used for the sharing time.
  
  
• For Website exploration it might be helpful to arrange for an adult helper to work with students at computers. Also, the teacher will need to open up a different children’s informational Website on each computer available. This lesson assumes that primary-age students are allowed Internet access; however, if that access is limited to teacher-selected sites and does not allow the use of search engines, have sites bookmarked before the activities.
  
  
• It is assumed that students will have participated in discussions of nonfiction books that have been read aloud to them, especially in regards to helping them learn to "think while reading" by responding to questions such as the following:
  
  
  • What do we know so far?
    
    
  • What did we just learn?
    
    
  • What else do you wonder about this?
    
  
  The teacher may want to precede the lesson with such a read-aloud to kick-off the activities.

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