Let’s Build a Snowman

Overview

Featured Resources

From Theory to Practice

 

OVERVIEW

How do animals find food in winter? In this lesson, students will learn that building a snowman is one way to provide food for birds and animals during the winter. Students begin by listening to a book about snow. Students are then introduced to a K-W-L chart and discuss what they know about how animals find food in the winter. As students listen to Henrietta Bancroft's Animals in Winter, they listen for details about how some animals survive during the winter and record those details in the last column of the chart. To continue to build students' knowledge of the topic, they listen to additional fiction and nonfiction books and view a website about animals in winter. As a culminating activity, students use their charts to write and illustrate a story.

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FEATURED RESOURCES

K-W-L chart: Students can use this handout to record information they know, want to know, and have learned about winter animals.

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FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Camp, D. (2000). It takes two: Teaching with Twin Texts of fact and fiction. The Reading Teacher, 53(5), 400–408.

• Twin Texts are two books, one fiction and one nonfiction (informational) on the same (or related) topic. While the nonfiction book answers questions in a straightforward manner, the story structure of a fiction book may be less difficult for students to understand.
  
  
• Pairing books of fiction and nonfiction allows students to become familiar with selected topics and vocabulary.
  
  
• Activating prior knowledge in preparation for literacy tasks enhances comprehension, sets a purpose for reading/listening, and can provide experiences that are meaningful and challenging to students.
  
  
• Using nonfiction materials can also serve other purposes, such as helping students develop reference skills, presenting summaries, introducing new topics, offering instructions to construct hands-on activities, or following recipes.

 

Ogle, D. (1986). K-W-L: A teaching model that develops active reading of expository text. The Reading Teacher, 39, 564-571.

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