My upper elementary students love reading about animals! Do your students too? A couple years back, I decided to mix their love of animals with reading and standards that we were learning in class. My students loved this and there was instant engagement!! Instead of using these animal passages with one practice activity (let’s be real, that is how I normally used passages), I decided to use passages with multiple activities and standards. Not only did my students love it, but I spent a lot less time looking for new passages.
Today, I am going to share with you 5 ways that I use the same set of animal passages to teacher different standards, skills and teach across different content areas. For all of these ideas, I used my North Carolina State Animal Passage Set that includes 10 different passages. There are enough passages in this set to give students choice and a variety of animals to read about for the different activities.
Idea #1 Comparing and Contrasting: Comparing and contrasting can be a boring standard and skill for upper elementary students because they have been doing it for many years. I love to find a topic my students like learning about to engage my students in comparing and contrasting practice. Animals is always one of their favorite topics! So, I started using our state animal passages for this. I would have students choose 2-3 different passages to read to compare and contrast. After they read their passages, I would have them draw a Venn Diagram to show their comparisons. Some years, I took this further and included writing into it and had them write comparison statements after they created their Venn Diagram. Here are a couple prompts I would give them for these statements: “_________ and _________ are similar because…” or “_________ and _________ are different because…”.
Idea #2 Researching: I discovered a couple years back that my students did not understand how to research. I learned that I would need to model and give my students additional time to practice researching before we started any research project. So, I decided to find an engaging topic and something I knew my students would love researching. That topic was animals! I shared a picture of each animal, had my students choose their top 3 animals to research and then assigned each student an animal. My one-page state animal passages are perfect for this brief introduction and practice for researching. I first started by modeling how I would READ my passage and then go back to pull out research. In my class, we would say the phrase “researching is reading” every time before we started researching. I would say “Researching is..” and my students would say “reading”. Then, I would model on an anchor chart how I could use a graphic organizer to help me research (see the picture below). After that, my students would have time to go research on their own using a similar graphic organizer. If you have additional time, you could have students share with a partner what they learned about their animal using their graphic organizer. This was always my students favorite part of this activity!
Idea #3 State Animal Slides: One of my student’s social studies standards is to learn about important symbols for our state. I found out what our state animals were and let my students choose one to research (this ties in nicely with the idea #2 on researching). We talked about the importance of using multiple types of sources to research. They would use the passage that went along with that state animal and then I would give them a couple different websites (check out a couple of my favorites below) to research more about their animal. After they researched, I had my students create a slideshow about their animal. I had them use each category on their graphic organizer as a different slide. This was a fun way for them to put their research together and then present to a partner or a small group of students. One year, I even invited parents in to see these presentations!
Here are a couple of my favorite kid-friendly animal websites: https://a-z-animals.com/animals/ , https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals and https://animalfactguide.com/
Idea #4 Informative or Persuasive Writing: Another way that my students used their research is by writing an informative essay or persuasive essay on the animal they researched. One year, I had my students write a 3 paragraph informative essay with an introduction, body and conclusion paragraph. This is a great way to teach about parts of an essay! Another year, I had my students write a letter to a family member trying to persuade them on why the animal they researched was the best animal in our state. These letters were so fun to read and I actually had my students mail or email these letters to their family members. I love pulling authentic audiences into our writing process!
Idea #5 Text Dependent Questions: One way that I help my students understand text dependent questions is by having them create questions themselves. This can be a challenging skill for upper elementary. So, I normally have them work with a partner for this. I strategically pair them together to help them be successful with this practice activity. I have my students read their passage multiple times and then write 5-10 text dependent questions together. When they are done, they trade passages with another set of partners who were reading about a different animal, and try to answer each others questions. Then, we come back together to discuss how they were able to find their answers and what reading strategies they used to help them.
What idea(s) are you going to try first with your students? I recommend starting with 1-2 of these ideas and then adding in more after that. Make sure you check out my state animal passages for minimal prep passages that work for each of these ideas! Each of my state passage sets come with 10 animal passages for your state in both a printable and digital version. Also, they include 2 different graphic organizers with 2 version of each graphic organizer to help with differentiation. Click the button below to see which state passages I have in my store. Don’t see your state? Drop a comment or send me a message on instagram and I will add your state to my list to create next!
Great content! Keep up the good work!
Thank you!