Actual Size

I love this book:

Here’s why:

1. Steve Jenkins’ books are awesome.

2. There is so much that you an do with this book!

3. Nonfiction texts suitable for reading a loud are sometimes tricky to find.  They can often be too long, or too wordy, or full of so many text features that don’t necessarily lend themselves to be read in full out loud. This text is simple, as the images are really the focal point of the book. 

4. The images in the text are actual size!  Large and small animals are included.  Some images only show part of the creature.  Others show the full animal.

5. It includes many features of nonfiction: comparisons, bold text, a glossary which gives more detailed information about each animal, and measurements.  Which leads me to my next point…

6. It includes measurements!  This means that it can easily be integrated into math(one con for fellow Canadians here, it’s all in imperial).  I had to convert the measurements to metric for my students, however that became another teachable moment in itself. 

Now, I have to credit a co-worker of mine for coming up with this next idea…

7. Once you’ve integrated this into math, it can then be integrated into art.

At this point I need to digress a little…

I teach a unit that combines explicit instruction on the features of nonfiction texts, inquiry, and report writing.  It is all done under the theme of stewardship for creation.  I will post more on this in the future…  So, during this unit, the students did some research on endangered species.  They all ended up choosing a species (each student had to choose a different animal), and researched the animal to write a report (Tony Stead is my guru on report writing).  It is here that we began to incorporate the artwork.

8. Now, I can’t take credit for this idea because it came from my grade partner, but nonetheless, it’s a great one and the kids loved it.  We created our own actual size artwork.  This was a time consuming project and required a lot of assistance from myself and classroom volunteers, but the kids really loved it, and they got a lot out of it.

Here’s a few samples:

So, first students had to do some research to get the dimensions of their animal.  Then they printed a picture of either the animal.  Since the students were told to focus on just one part of the animal, we had to then determine the measurement of that body part based on the total length or height of the animal. To do this, they cut out the picture of the animal and glued it onto some 1cm grid paper.  Then they had to determine the scale of each image using the actual measurements (for example,  if a bald eagle’s wingspan is 230 cm and on grid paper the picture of the wingspan measures 10 squares, then you know that each square represents 2.3 cm.  If the student was focusing their artwork on one wing, they would then look at the length of that wing on the grid paper and multiply that by 2.3). That part was the most difficult (obviously) for the students.  It required a lot of help from myself and some classroom volunteers, but it all got done and the kids loved it.  I really wish I had taken a picture of the half a killer whale fluke that one of my students did.  It was so big, but so awesome!

What are some great nonfiction texts you like to use with your class?  What are some activities you like to do with them?