It’s been a few weeks since I linked up with Mrs. Jump for Book Talk Tuesday, but this week I wanted to share a great fall book and some fun freebies to go with it.
Finding a good nonfiction book to use with kinders can be tough! I always look for books with real nonfiction features that I can use for teaching points. I also try to find books that are short and simple enough for my students to understand without being overwhelmed by the amount of information. One of my favorite resources for finding these books is scholastic! They often have thematic packs of “Science Vocabulary Readers” that are perfect for primary classes.
Colorful Leaves By: Maria Fleming is one of the books in this awesome series and is a great addition to learning about leaves.
The pictures in this book are beautiful!
It begins with a table of contents, so I like to point out text features whenever I can! Students will learn about leaf shapes, what leaves do, and a leaf’s life. We discuss how in nonfiction books you don’t always have to read the entire book cover to cover. The table of contents can help you find just the information you are looking for, a great researching skill!
I really like that the leaf shape section shows that leaves aren’t just on trees!
The students can clearly learn a lot from just the photographs on this page. I have them draw different leaf shapes that they didn’t know about before after viewing this page.
This and other books in this series have new vocabulary in red with a definition on the page as well as in the glossary.
The photo, captions,close up and drawing on this page are more great examples of helpful text features I point out to my students. We discuss how and what we learned from each of these features.
The glossary in the back is a great reference for the new vocabulary in this book. The comprehension questions aren’t great, but are good for basic recall.
I created some graphic organizers to use with this book that could be used with other leaf books as well. you can grab them here free!
I also use this book with my kindergarten friends!! I love the Science Vocabulary Readers – they are perfect to use with the younger grades and I find my students learn so much about text features from them. Thank you so much for sharing your leaf freebies – they are great!!
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Thanks for checking out my post, I'm glad you'll be able to use the organizers!