Informational writing doesn’t have to be super challenging for kids. Most children like reading, watching, and listening to nonfiction. And they LOVE to tell you all the fun facts and trivia they know about their particular passion topic.
I don’t know if this happens in other parts of the country, but when I was teaching in Florida, many of my students were obsessed with sharks.
Obsessed.
Every day, they would pepper me with shark facts. Now, thanks to all my tiny shark experts, I know more about sharks than I ever thought I would. I’m a self-appointed marine biologist at this point.
The next natural step is to write about the real things in life that spark our interests.
GETTING STARTED WITH INFORMATIONAL WRITING
When we’re planning our informational writing unit, we begin by finding out what our students are interested in. To help us manage the lesson planning, we work under the umbrella topic of ANIMALS. We have access to a lot of resources about animals, so choosing this large idea increases our odds of having just what the kids need for their research.
Within the topic of animals, each child can choose a specific animal. This can be an animal they are already familiar with, or it can be an animal they want to know more about. Don’t worry if a child chooses a familiar or common animal. They may be making that choice because they’re passionate about that animal or are comfortable in the knowledge that they already have some information to write about. If this happens though, they’ll still be researching to dig for new facts.
TIME TO RESEARCH!
Once children have a specific topic in mind, it’s time to begin the process of research. This requires some pre-searching of your own before the children start. If you teach first or second grade, it’s possible this is the first time your students have tried to research information. This process will go much more smoothly if you gather all the age-appropriate resources they might need, such as nonfiction books and children’s magazines like Ranger Rick, Jr.
It can also be helpful to bookmark appropriate websites and videos on your devices. A quick search on YouTube will provide you with tons of great informational videos for kids to watch. We usually check out BrainPOP, National Geographic, PBS Kids, Crash Course Kids, and SciShow Kids.
Scholastic and Pebble Books are two of my favorite publishers to check out when I’m teaching informational writing. They have great choices for kids in grades 1-2. The photographs, nonfiction features, and level of text difficulty are almost always spot-on for my students. This👇 sample below is from Scholastic.
And this👇 is a page from Sea Turtles published by Pebble Books. On one page, there is simple, uncluttered text. And on the facing page, there’s always a beautiful photograph. My students love how manageable these books are.
INFORMATIONAL WRITING TEMPLATES
Throughout the year, we use different writing templates to help children organize their ideas. One of my favorite templates to use for informational writing is a report template. The template guides my children through the research process so they can stay focused and learn new information without becoming overwhelmed.
There will eventually be a time when they no longer need such a structure, but for beginning writers, writing templates are a valuable support. The templates have guiding questions, but the spaces are large and open, inviting children to respond in unique ways of their choosing. In this way, there is still choice and voice … each report comes out differently designed by its author.
And at the end, they aren’t all crying because they don’t know where to start. You can tell I’ve “been there.” 😉
In my past two blog posts, I shared FREE templates for K-2 teachers. One set is for OPINION WRITING and the other set is for a TINY TWIST ON THE PERSONAL NARRATIVE. You can pick up those templates and read more about the instruction in each of those posts.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONAL WRITING TEMPLATES
Click on the images above👆to preview the templates.
Happy teaching!
These look great, I can’t wait to try them with my students!