Saturday, March 22, 2014

Expository Text in Kindergarten

Well we just finished our first week back after spring break!  We began our unit on expository text and writing. "All about"  books as the kids call them.  I started out by telling the kids we were going to choose a topic together and that we were going to learn how to research that topic using books, experts, and of course technology.  My class immediately chose sharks as their topic.  We then decided that we needed more shark books than I had available in my classroom.  We learned how to use our online library catalog to choose and order books from our school library.  The next step was to choose three questions that we had about sharks.  Our questions were "What body parts do sharks have?"  "What kinds of sharks are there?" and "What do sharks eat?"  Each day we read books and looked on various internet sites such as Nat Geo Kids, Discovery Education, and even the Wild Kratts from PBS kids  to answer our questions.  We charted and compiled all of our information.  We also "consulted" some experts by visiting the live webcams from The Monterey Bay Aquarium.  They have a fantastic site and each day you can watch a live diver in the tank who will talk about all the different fish.  Toward the end of the week,  I modeled and demonstrated how to turn their research into "All About"  books.  The coolest product that we made was using the site Thinglink.  I signed up for a free educator account and then helped small groups create a Thinglink report.  Check out one below.

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