Learning About Animals with Read-Aloud Books

Books about animals are universally appealing. So many of our students seem to have an unquenchable thirst to learn more about every kind of animal!  What better way to learn more about animals than through great read aloud books!

Using good read alouds was always a big part of my science teaching. These non-fiction books are such a great way to introduce or review concepts and vocabulary. And of course, a read aloud book is also a great way to kick off a writing project!

What makes a good non-fiction read-aloud for the primary grades? There are so many factors! As a start, I'd suggest taking these into account when making your book selections.

Typically, I'd be looking for books with photographs, particularly if you have students who haven't had the opportunity to visit a zoo or animal park.

That being said, some of my personal favorites among animal books are written and illustrated by the amazing Steve Jenkins. 

These books may not have photos, but they have awesome illustrations. I love that the size of the books is large enough and the illustrations are bold enough that even the kids at the back of your story circle can see them easily!  Plus, these books definitely have that WOW factor that will keep your students engaged and begging for more!

Just pull out any one of Steve Jenkins' books and watch your students' eyes light up! (Don't you love it when your students start to recognize the books of a favorite author and even seek them out at the library?)

Have you read this Caldecott Honor Award Winner?  It's in the format of a guessing book. Students are shown a snout, ears, feet, etc. and then learn which animal the body part belongs to  and how the animal has unique ways of using that part.

Have you heard your students argue about which animal is faster, the cheetah or the falcon?  Kids love records - they'll be reading those Guinness Record books in just a few short years! Here's a Steve Jenkins book that will feed their curiosity about which animal is fastest, strongest, longest - the record holders of the animal world!

My favorite? Without a doubt, it's Actual Size! Your students will be amazed as the pages of this clever book unfold to display the actual size of a squid's eyeball or a gorilla's hand. You'll hear lots of oohs and aahs when you read this one... and they usually want to hear this book again and again!

As your students become animal experts, here are two resources you'll enjoy using!

This set of 24 riddle cards plus related activities is a fun way to reinforce learning about animal characteristics, habitats, and classes. Teaching with riddles is also a great way to model early reading comprehension strategies like identifying key details, inferring, and drawing conclusions!

                                                    

                                                 Click the Pinterest button to save for later!

Click here for a closer look!

If you're looking for a whole class activity, a game of I Have ... Who Has... is always a hit! The animal theme makes them a perfect fit for your animal studies. If the reading level is a bit tough for some of your young students, just assign "support partners" - a weaker reader with a stronger one!

Find out more about this game here!

Find nearly a dozen resources about animals here!

Happy Teaching!

Learning About Animals through Math and Literacy

Little learners love to learn about animals, and frankly, I love to teach about them, too! Here's why!

First of all, I think it's so much fun to empower our students with new information, knowledge that expands their schema and fuels their curiosity for more reading.

Second, I don't think there's ever been a schoolyear when I didn't learn something totally amazing that I'd never heard or read before! It's fun to learn something new, and it's a wonderful thing for our students to know that we are learning side-by-side with them, that our learning never ends.

Of course, being the cross-curricular-ly-minded teacher that I am {sorry, but that totally demanded making up a new word!!}, I had to find ways to expand learning about animals into every corner of our day!

Here are some other learning opportunities for bringing science into literacy and math.

20 animal riddles, plus a riddle writing activity and an activity that you can use in a literacy center or a science center.  Click here to see it!

80 pages of literacy-based science activities.  Includes activities for ...

* compare and contrast * fact and opinion * classifying * labeling diagrams * 

* alphabetical order * using graphic organizers * fluent phrasing *

See them all here.

Bring some math into your science (or some science into your math...) with this wildcats game 

for practicing sums of ten. Click here to find out more about this set.

Have a great week! Happy Teaching!

Free Animal Classes Reference Chart

Hi, Everyone!

Animals are so frequently a huge part of our primary grade science curriculum. Isn't it a happy coincidence that kids love learning about them and we also love to teach this? I really can say that everytime I've taught an animal unit, I've learned something new! Awesome Author Alert: If you don't know Steve Jenkins' books, you're missing out on something great! Check out his great website here. Two of my faves are Actual Size and Biggest, Strongest, Fastest - your little guys will be wide-eyed with wonder!



                                       




I have a freebie for you today that will help your little ones understand and remember animal classification more easily by looking at photographs of animals.

This Animal Classes Reference Chart  has a color-coded background that is keyed to the animal classifications. Teach your students to use the key at the top of the chart... and put another check mark by your standards for Informational Text!

You can print, trim, and glue this into a file folder for use at desks or in centers, or print and attach to a 12X18 paper for an instant wall poster.

Click here to download from my TPT store.

The chart is a part of Animal Classes: A Literacy and Science Cross-Curricular Unit, also available at my TPT store. There are 14 activities, which include comparing and contrasting, fact and opinion, graphic organizers (webs and tree charts), 2 board games, 3 sets of animal cards (pictures, words, pictures/words), story cards for reading, a set of sight word phrase cards, pictures for labeling, and more!   Here's a little peek!

Click on this picture to go directly to the unit at TPT.

Happy Teaching!

Zoo Animal Freebie!

Hi, Teaching Friends1

Is there anything children enjoy more than learning about animals? There are so many exciting things to wonder about... and so many confusions rolling around in their sweet little heads! Like the little sweetie of mine who was excited to be going to gym to do the octopus course (obstacle course), another who wondered how cows get their gutters, and yet another whose dad hauled around a truck filled with woodchucks (woodchips)! Honestly, does anyone in the world get as much fun and laughter in their workdays as we do?

At the end of the day, of course, we're here to help them untangle the facts from the what-they-are-convinced-are-facts-but-well, no.  Here's a freebie for you that will review some facts about zoo animals while providing practice with subject and predicate. There are 12 sentence subject cards, 12 predicate cards, a self-checking card, and a student response sheet, as well as a suggestion for an extension activity for writing.

Click here to download

This activity is from my zoo animal unit. It's a set of cross-curricular activities to practice early literacy skills while supporting your science teaching about zoo animals. Here's a sampling of the activities...

Download the preview at my TPT store for a detailed listing of the contents!

Click here to see the zoo animal unit.

I'm hard at work on a new animal/literacy cross-curricular unit, Animal Groups. Keep watching here for details by the end of this week! (At least, that's the plan... :)   Done! Click here to see it!

Happy Teaching!