Going Batty!

Bats are so interesting, although I wouldn't want to run into a roost in a dark cave.  Bats do make for a great topic for first and second grade research though!  We used the topic to discuss informational text.  As we read different nonfiction books and articles, we recorded our learning on a RAN (Reading and Analyzing Nonfiction) chart.

The chart starts with our background knowledge.  The students brainstormed what they already thought they knew about bats.  As we read, we moved and added post it notes to the other categories.  When our background knowledge was correct we moved the note to "Yes, we were right."  Of course, when we found text evidence of our thinking we were sure to note the source on the the post-it.  Sometimes, as we read we found that our thinking changed.  For instance, some students thought bats were blind.  As we read, we learned that bats can see quite well in low light.  If our thinking changed, our post-it moved to "We don't think this anymore."  There was also a category for new learning and another for wonderings.

The first graders brought their learning into writing.  The students made a chart with some of their ideas from their research.  We worked on creating our own sentences instead of copying from our research sources. 

Bats was also a great topic for discussing fact and opinion.  After all our research we did several sorts on bat facts and bat opinions.  We even read an article and highlighted the facts in yellow and the opinions in blue.  Thank you Amy Lemons from Step into Second Grade.  The second graders practiced writing their own facts and opinions in an app called PicCollage.  We are just going batty over all this learning!