Bits About Bunnies! A Literacy Mini Unit

I am so excited to use this next week! My kids are loving the Informational Text Close Reads that we have been doing, so I know they will really like this one about bunnies! It's a great way to combine what is fun and naturally engaging for them with integrated Common Core Objectives!
I'll post an update after we get busy with all of this fun stuff!

Pet Bunny question chart ready to go - I put a copy of the Bunny Rabbits close read at the top. We read it for the first time today. I had them talk to their partner about one thing they learned by listening to the text for the first time. I always love to hear what they pick up on, SO many of them said they liked learning that a bunny can purr the way a cat does! Can't wait to keep going on this all week!

Here's the Bunnies Can / Have / Are anchor chart ready to go:
All the elements for the charts are included in 
Bits About Bunnies - Mini Literacy Unit

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-Update-

Today we worked on the "Bunny Rabbit's" Informational Text Close Read, as well as the Bunnies Anchor Chart. Here's what it looked like:

•I read the text straight through (it was projected onto the smart board).

•I invited them to read the text "with me".  I pointed to each word as I read and they read with me

(well about a half second behind me anyway).

•We went through and discussed the underlined words with great detail, talking to our partners and

coming to understandings about the vocabulary. My favorite was the word similar, we used an example of two students hair color to illustrate the point.

•Each student got a pencil, a book to use for a lap desk, and their copy of the text with picture and a place for their notes (Student Annotations Page).

•They wrote down notes about facts that were interesting to them. We talked about writing notes to remind themselves of facts they would like to report on their fact writing page, and that the notes may not be complete sentences, much like a  grocery list would be. They really did great with this, they were so engaged and I loved the way many of them were drawing arrows to the place in the text they were noting!

•When they finished they went to their seats, and using their notes, wrote sentences of facts from the text and shared them with partners. 

I really loved having them annotate before their fact writing. I felt like it was time well spent because conceptually they understood what they were doing at a much deeper level and the conversations that were taking place really exemplified that! The oral language component of doing a close reading of text is a hidden little gem :o)