Teaching text features

 I really like this nonfiction picture book about the White House to teach children about text features. I was able to get a class set a few years ago from Scholastic. The book includes a great variety of different text features such as: maps, pictures, captions and cutaways.

a page from the book which shows a map of D.C.

I also used this great site: http://panoramas.dk/US/washington-cherry-trees.html
  to show Washington D.C. on my Smartboard. It shows a panoramic view from a spot along the Potomac river. I had the children compare the panorama to the map above. You can see various monuments which help you to identify the spot it was filmed from.



This is the cutaway of the White House in the book

I printed these great posters from a website, unfortunately, I don't remember the address. I use them while we are reading the book, The Story of the White House to discuss different text features we come across.
Christine






Mysteries from history

I really like this series by Jane Yolen. Each book is a different unsolved mystery from history. The text features she uses are really unique. This is a picture of the bulletin board I made after reading The Mary Celeste (my favorite of the 4) with my class.You can see she uses "stickies" to define words the kids might not know (in this book the words were about sailing). She has another box with background information for the reader. I haven't found a lot of picture books that are mysteries. This series inspired some of my readers to look for paperback mysteries. One thing the kids didn't really like was that these historical mysteries were never solved. At the end of the book,  the author encourages kids to use critical thinking skills to come to their own conclusions. Christine

Text features

Children do not automatically use text features. This is why lessons which explicitly teach text features are so important. One idea given to my by the great Nancy D. is to go on a text feature "hunt" using a variety of nonfiction books and magazines. Have the students work in groups and list which text features they found in the various books (see poster). Next, have them do a project/poster on any acceptable topic which involves using 6/7 different text features to create a page on their subject.I will try to post a copy of one in the future.Christine