Owl Craft and Reading For Information

I think I’ve mentioned a million few times that I. Love. Fall. I love the weather, the leaves changing and even the fun activities that can go along with Halloween and Thanksgiving.

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I mentioned in a previous post {here} that my mom comes about once a month to do fun crafty activities with my class. 🙂 Hooray for amazing moms! This week, she came again for a fun owl craft.

We do live in the age of standards and pacing guides, however, so I worked out a way to help it connect to our learning!

For read aloud that day, I picked Owls by Gail Gibbons. She’s a great nonfiction author…I love her books!

Before we read, we used sticky notes to write down facts we already knew about owls. We have been discussing making connections to background knowledge as a reading strategy! 

As we read, they wrote down facts they learned about owls from the book. They used the small stickies again. I used the Sharing Board from Laura Candler’s Graphic Organizers for Reading to help them organize and keep track of their sticky notes.

As a class we had a great discussion about how new information links to old information in your brain and that’s how it sticks!

Later that day, we used our sticky notes and transferred them onto a “Just the Facts” graphic organizer that I downloaded from Christina at Bunting, Books and Bainbridge. It was perfect…the first part asked them to write what they already knew. The second part asked them to write what they learned! And the last part was to write a question they still had. It fit perfectly with this activity. 🙂

After we got all the research and reading strategies out of the way, the really fun part could begin. (Although who can argue that reading strategies with awesome graphic organizers aren’t fun?)

We made walnut owls! 🙂

When they finished their owls, they put finishing touches on their graphic organizers. I taped the graphic organizer to the owl…

I added a very boring title…

and we have our Owl Bulletin Board!

We had a great time…my kids love when my mom visits! 🙂 A happy (and successful) day in 4th grade.

This Post Has 20 Comments

  1. Ms. O October 27, 2012 Reply

    ACK! I'm minding my own blog stalking on a lazy Saturday. THANK YOU! :]

  3. Kelly Teaching Fourth October 27, 2012 Reply

    Thanks so much for linking up with me again! I love love love all of your owl activities! They are great! Your mom is so sweet to come help you with such wonderful crafts. Thanks for sharing the blog. I can't wait to check it out.

    Kelly
    Teaching Fourth

  6. Nichole Falkowski October 27, 2012 Reply

    Thank you so much! I'm not sure where my mom got the idea, but they turn out pretty cute and they aren't too hard.

    Thanks for stopping by!

    Nichole

  7. Nichole Falkowski October 27, 2012 Reply

    Thanks again for hosting Kelly! The owls were pretty darn fun and we got some learning in there too… 🙂 My mom is pretty great…I'm a lucky gal!

    Nichole

  11. FourthGrade Flipper October 28, 2012 Reply

    I LOVE that craft!! My students are into owls now that they are all over my room and keep showing me things that they have with an "owl" theme. haha! Thank you for sharing!
    ~Holly
    Fourth Grade Flipper

  13. Nichole Falkowski October 28, 2012 Reply

    Awww, that's so cute! I always love it when they figure out what we love and then go out of their way to find it for us. 🙂

    Nichole

  15. Tina Crofts October 28, 2012 Reply

    I agree with everyone above about the super cute owls. I am also loving the Graphic Organizers for Big Kids. Going to check it out at her TpT store right now! Thanks for the ideas 🙂

  17. Nichole Falkowski October 29, 2012 Reply

    Thanks Tina! Those Graphic Organizers saved my bacon last week…love them!

    Nichole

  18. Nichole Falkowski October 29, 2012 Reply

    Of course! I love the graphic organizers…thanks for making such a great product!

    Nichole

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