Researching Animals

AIDAN GARLING
First Grade/ Reading and Writing

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.2
Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and
provide some sense of closure.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.5
With guidance and support from adults, focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers,
and add details to strengthen writing as needed.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.6
With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing,
including in collaboration with peers.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.8
With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from
provided sources to answer a question.

Lesson Summary:

Students will choose an animal to research and will answer prompted questions. They will then use online
resources as well as books from the library to research their animal to create a book and share what they have
learned.

Estimated Duration:

This lesson will be divided amongst multiple days, 6 in total, with about 70 minutes per day allotted for this
project. The zoo field trip will be included on one of those 6 days and will take longer than 70 minutes. There
will be two days for research, two days for writing, one day for the zoo trip, and one day to wrap up the project
and do a gallery walk.

Commentary:
Some students may not like to write which will make it difficult for some to stay motivated but hopefully the
trip to the zoo will cause these students to want to engaged with the project more. Using the internet to
research could cause students to become distracted or get off task by accesign sites that are for things other
than researching so checking in on their progress will be necessary.
Instructional Procedures:

DAY ONE: PROJECT INTRODUCTION AND FIRST RESEARCH DAY

● Introduction (5 minutes):
○ Show students an informational book about an animal just focusing on the cover at first.
○ Discuss how the book is about an animal and then move the conversation towards what they
think the might be about more specifically?
■ what kind of information could be in the book?
■ write their ideas on the board.
○ Read the book and address the brainstormed ideas.

● Explicit Instruction (15 minutes):

○ Introduce the project (researching animals and creating an informative book)
○ Talk about research resources
■ have a stack of books available to use
■ suggest the school library
■ talk about safe online resources
○ Give students a minute to brainstorm what animal they want to learn about and then ask them
each individually (record a list of their selections)
○ Provide students with a folder containing the worksheets they will need for this project as well
as a small ‘field journal’ for the zoo trip
■ one worksheet that will help them know what information to look for
● What My Animal Looks Like
● What My Animal Eats
● Where My Animal Lives
● 3-5 Fun Facts.
■ one worksheet for tracking daily work
● at the end of the day record what you did that day
■ Four sheets of paper that will be used to create their books
● Tell them not to worry about these four pages yet because they will be used later

● Guided Practice (5 minutes):

○ Have students write their name and their animal on the front of their folder
○ Model how to fill out the information research sheet

● Independent Work Time (35 minutes):

○ Have students begin researching their subjects using appropriate and required resources
■ at least one book
■ at least one one online source
 ● Closing (10 minutes):
○ Regroup and demonstrate how to fill out their time logs
○ Ask students to start cleaning up their research materials and to have only their time logs and a
pencil out on their desks on top of their project folder
■ go around and stamp their time log to see what they did that day and make sure it was
done correctly
○ Have a class discussion
■ What did you learn?
■ What was hard?
● how could it be easier?
■ What was helpful?

DAY TWO: ZOO TRIP

● Introduction (10 minutes):
○ Discuss field trip etiquette
○ Make sure everyone knows who their buddy is and what chaperone group they will be in
○ Have students grab their field journal from their folder and a pencil and talk about what to use it
for
■ Writing down notes about their animal
■ Recording observations

● Zoo Trip (depends on field trip policies for each school):

○ Students will go in groups with their chaperones to see their specific animals to research them
○ Meet back up for lunch as a whole group
○ Ask chaperones to take pictures of the students researching at the zoo to include in the
classroom
■ Only do this if permission is granted!!

● Classroom Closing (10 minutes):

○ Have students take time to fill out their time log
○ Ask students to have their field journal their time logs and a pencil out on their desks on top of
their project folder
■ go around and stamp their time log to see what they did that day and make sure it was
done correctly
■ stamp their field journal as well
○ Have a class discussion
■ What did you learn?
■ What was hard?
● how could it be easier?
■ What was helpful?
DAY THREE: SECOND RESEARCH DAY
● Introduction (15 minutes):
○ Discuss the zoo trip
○ Talk about how to use the information they collected in the project
○ Tell students that today will be the last day to research their animal

● Independent Work Time (45 minutes):

○ Have students continue researching their subjects using appropriate and required resources
■ at least one book
■ at least one one online source

● Closing (10 minutes):

○ Ask students to start cleaning up their research materials and to have only their time logs and a
pencil out on their desks on top of their project folder
■ go around and stamp their time log to see what they did that day and make sure it was
done correctly
○ Have a class discussion
■ What did you learn?
■ What was hard?
● how could it be easier?
■ What was helpful?

DAY FOUR: FIRST WRITING DAY

● Introduction (10 minutes):
○ Read another informational book about an animal
■ Discuss the important parts of it again looking more at how the information was
organized
○ Talk about how today students will be turning their research into writing.

● Explicit Instruction (5 minutes):

○ Show an example of a finished informative book that you created
○ Have students take the four pieces of paper out that you instructed the students to save for later
and talk about how they will be used to create the book

● Guided Practice (15 minutes):

○ Demonstrate to students how they will create headers for each of the pages and the headers will
be titled after the categories they used to guide their research
■ What My Animal Looks Like
■ What My Animal Eats
■ Where My Animal Lives
■ Fun Facts
 ○ Model an example of how to take their information they collected and turn it into what they
should write in their book.
■ Use “book language” rather than “research language”
■ Remind them to consult their field journals and their information research worksheet
○ Talk about closing sentences and how it is important to wrap up what they write about
■ demonstrate an example sentence
● “These are the things I learn about ___ through my research”
■ have students brainstorm a closing sentence
● Independent Work Time (35 minutes)
○ Students will work independently to
■ create page headers
■ write their information in their books
● Closing (10 minutes):
○ Ask students to start cleaning up their research materials and to have only their time logs and a
pencil out on their desks on top of their project folder
■ go around and stamp their time log to see what they did that day and make sure it was
done correctly
○ Have a class discussion
■ What did you learn?
■ What was hard?
● how could it be easier?
■ What was helpful?

DAY FIVE: SECOND WRITING DAY

● Introduction (10 minutes):
○ Read another informational book about an animal
■ Discuss the important parts of it again looking more at how the information was
organized
○ Tell students that this will be their last day of writing
○ Introduce the idea of the cover
■ talk about the important parts of a cover
● title
● author
● picture
■ students who finish their writing can move on to their covers

● Guided Practice (5 minutes):

○ Show students where to access construction paper and art supplies for their cover.
○ Show examples of hand made covers

● Independent Working Time (50 minutes):

○ Students will continue to work independently to
■ create page headers
 ■ write their information in their books
■ design their book covers
● Closing (10 minutes):
○ Ask students to start cleaning up their research materials and to have only their time logs and a
pencil out on their desks on top of their project folder
■ go around and stamp their time log to see what they did that day and make sure it was
done correctly
○ Have a class discussion
■ What did you learn?
■ What was hard?
● how could it be easier?
■ What was helpful?

DAY SIX: PROJECT WRAP UP AND GALLERY WALK

● Introduction (10 minutes):
○ Inform students of today’s work schedule
■ first 20 minutes finish up project
■ 30 minutes to do a gallery walk
○ Explain gallery walk
■ go around and look at others projects

● Independent Working Time (20 minutes):

○ students will spend this time putting the final touches on their projects

● Gallery Walk (30 minutes):

○ students will go around and get the chance to look at their classmates projects
○ Encourage students to think of something nice about each projet they look at

● Closing (10 minutes):

○ Ask students to return to their seats with their projects and get their time logs out one last time
■ go around and stamp their time log to see what they did that day and make sure it was
done correctly
○ Have students turn in their projects in their folders with their field journals and their time logs
○ Talk about the gallery walk
■ share some of the good thoughts they had
○ Have a class discussion about the overall experience of this project
■ What did you learn?
■ What was hard?
● how could it be easier?
■ What was helpful?
■ What did you like/ dislike?
Pre-Assessment:
Have a class discussion about the following topics and use your best judgement to gage where they are at as a
class when it comes to previous experience with the elements of this project:
● researching
○ using online resources
○ using books/ hard copy materials
● writing a book
○ topic, facts, sense of closure

Scoring Guidelines:
Assess how many students are familiar with they steps to writing a book and the process it takes to be an
author. From there you will be able to determine how much group instruction you will need to conduct versus
how much one-on-one time will need to be spent working with students.

Post-Assessment:
Asses students by reviewing their books as well as their daily time logs that will tell you how they used their
time each day.

Scoring Guidelines:
Pay attention to how students:
● Conducted their research
○ did they use online resources?
○ did they use hard copy materials?
○ did they use their time wisely?
● Assembled their books
○ did they present their topic?
○ did they share appropriate facts?
○ did they categorize things in a logical manner?
○ did they end with a sense of closer?

Differentiated Instructional Support

Describe how instruction can be differentiated (changed or altered) to meet the needs of gifted or accelerated
students:
● For advanced students​: Allow for students to form an ‘editor/ advisor’ group where other student in
the class can come to them to look over their books to get help revising their work.
 ● For students who need support​: Create sentence frames to help guide students for each section of
their book. For example, for the Fun Fact section create an outline saying “Three fun facts about ____
are…”
“1. ______”
“2. ______”
“3. ______”

Discuss additional activities you could do to meet the needs of students who might be struggling with the
material:
To help struggling students you could as a class make a list of good online resources to use to find
information. Another way to help students who may be struggling more than others is to have a book that
already has a template created inside it so that all they have to do is find the information online and fill in the
blanks in the book.

Extension
This is a great website to use when researching your animals:
https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/
This is a good worksheet for beginning research or continuing research at home
https://animalfactguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/worksheet_research.pdf

Homework Options and Home Connections

First grade might be a little too young to assign at-home research projects but you could always include
information about the project in a classroom newsletter and encourage students to get excited about their
project by telling their parents about what they are doing. Maybe even encourage them to ask their parents to
take them to their local library to learn more about their topic.

Interdisciplinary Connections
ART: ​During this lesson students will be creating a book about their animals and will be asked to design the
front cover for their book.
SCIENCE: ​Students will be exploring and researching their animals as if they were scientists conducting
research on a subject
** HISTORY: ​Some students may be researching animals that are going extinct and therefore might look into
their pasts to discover how they became endangered.
Materials and Resources:

For teachers A SMART board or a way to project a computer screen to the class to demonstrate
where and how to research their topics.
Worksheets for time logs, for recording information, and for to-do checklists to stay on
track.
folders
field journals
A sample book for students to look over.
field trip permission slips

For students Computers/ Laptops- a way to access the internet.

Books about animals
Paper to create their books and crafting tools such as markers, pencils, crayons,
scissors, glue.

Key Vocabulary
Search engine, online resources, internet safety, topic/ subject, informative writing, closure.

Additional Notes

For a trip to the zoo be sure to send home a permission slip with a page attached with information about the
trip as well as a way for parents to sign up to chaperone.