Nonfiction Note Taking and Writing

This past nine weeks, my little darlings had a WONDERFUL time exploring the world of nonfiction reading and writing. We have a great textbook adoption that has a variety of nonfiction selections. Has we moved our way through this super exciting genre, I thought it would be a great opportunity to for my students to begin note taking to help keep track of the important details. Here are a couple of graphic organizers that we used to jot down our thoughts:

Note Taking Form

 

Nonfiction Circle Map

 The kiddos read their stories and others that complimented the given topics (weather books, biographies on African American inventors and U.S. Presidents) and then took notes or added to the notes that they had already gathered. This made for an awesome prewriting activity as well!! Before the students used their notes to write their 5 page books, they worked with a partner and shared their notes verbally with them....retelling what they had read as they were planning their books!!

My little ones then used this stationary:

to write about their topics.My students also used this page to create their table of contents with the corresponding page number.

The next step to our fabulous 5 page books was to make a cover that included our title, cover illustration and author's name. On the inside cover, the kiddos wrote a dedication, publishing information and a copyright date.

Then, it was time to share our hard work with our classmates! They were so proud of their books and learned so much along the way!