This week my students started studying non-fiction text features. On Monday, I placed a stack of non- fiction books at their groups and had them rotate through the groups recording things they noticed. On Tuesday, I read them Sharks by Gail Gibbons. now I know sharks may be a weird theme in December, but here in NC we recently learned that a very large great white shark has been swimming very close to us. This excitement cause a great teaching moment.  We talked about the text features we noticed and what their purpose was.

 Then, on Wednesday, I used a SMART Board lesson I created using these wonderful posters. We went over each text feature and completed the Stopping A Toppling Tower sheet.

Today we did some text mapping. I photocopied pages from all my non-fiction books and then taped them to construction paper. I then taped them in a scroll like fashion. I grouped students and had them go on a "text feature scavenger hunt". I told them which color they would use for each text feature and had them begin labeling each feature they saw.

If you are going to be teaching text features soon, visit Beth Newingham's site it is wonderful!