Connecting Content, Critical Thinking, and Creativity Through Trade BooksSteve RichChristine Anne Royce @bflyguy @caroyce

Today’s Goals

Investigate a series of activities that help to integrate

science and literacy skills that use trade books focused

on critical thinking, creativity, and developmentally

appropriate content.

Using Trade Books in the Classroom

The introduction of accurate trade books into the

elementary curriculum facilitates a connection with

content by providing background knowledge, the

introduction of new ideas and vocabulary as well as the

catalyst to motivate students to learn more about a topic of

study.

https://msu.edu/~stanawa8/Science%20and%20Children's%20Literature.htm

Examining Flight

What are all of the ways you can incorporate the idea

of flight or flying into your science classroom?

Turn to your neighbor and brainstorm

This is a sample text.

Insert your desired text here.

Sample text

What purpose do we read for?

Reading for the overall feeling that the story brings.

Connections to the larger picture and personal experiences.

Aesthetic Purposes

Reading for information, facts, and concepts.

Provides a source for developing student knowledge.

Efferent Purposes

Strategy: Making Connections

Text to Self

Text to Text

Text to World

Innovation Concept

Fictional story about a girl who

Goes outside and finds the

overwintering trees for Monarchs

Butterfly Tree

An informational text that tells the true

story of what happened when the

former First Lady of the United States

planted a butterfly garden at her home

Mrs. Carter’s Butterfly Garden

Bringing in Different Types of Literacy: Emotional and Visual

Students find a safe place to record their thoughts and feelings in

response to science readings and experiences..

Journaling

Additional tools and opportunities for learning when they use or create

drawings and diagrams that support text..

Drawings and Diagrams

“Good observers of visual images follow the same steps as fluent readers do.”

~Jo Anne Vasquez

Critical Thinking –

• Think about the message• Make mental images• Ask questions• Connecting to existing

knowledge• Reflect on your reaction• Determine key points.

Maps can enhance literature and support science learning

Activity: Use map of butterfly migration to translate into a smartphone app’s directions that would guide a butterfly through migration from the United States to Mexico.

Mapping the way for Monarch butterflies

Students start writing….

Step 1. Go to get tagged…..

Step 2. Fly due south for 120 miles to Florida state

line….

Step 3. (continued directions)

Labeled Drawings : Interactive Diagrams.

Fictional story that tells of Miss Maple

who looks for orphaned seeds to keep

warm until the next spring

Miss Maple’s Seeds

Next Time You See a Maple SeedFactual information about Maple Seeds

or Samaras; what they need to grow

and how they are dispersed.

Science Connection: Seed Dispersal by Wind

Seeds that fly or glide Seeds that drift in the wind Seeds that are released from their pods by the wind.

http://theseedsite.co.uk/sdwind.html

Literacy Connection – Mentor Texts & Text SetsMentor Texts Text Sets

A mentor text is any piece of writing that can be used to teach a writer about some aspect of writer’s craft.

A text set is a collection of related texts organized around a topic or line of inquiry. The line of inquiry of a given set is determined by an anchor text—a rich, complex grade-level text.

Mentor texts can take the form of any genre: picture book, excerpt from a chapter book, a magazine or newspaper article, an editorial, a cookbook, etc. Relatively short pieces of text work best.

Build student knowledge about a topic; meaningful connection to the anchor text.

Texts are authentic, rich, and worthy of study.

Idea: - create an original idea based on one from the text.Structure: writer tries to emulate using original ideas.Written Craft: the author’s writing style, ways with words, or sentence structure inspires the writer to try out these techniques.

Range of text types (literary and informational) and formats.

Text complexity levels support student achievement of the grade-level complexity demands of the CCSS*

Guide to Creating Text Sets -- www.ccsso.org/Documents

An Example Text Set to Support Seeds

An Example Text Set to Butterflies

An informational text presented in a fun,

interactive , pop-up book that to help young

readers look at the adaptations of various birds.

Birds of a Feather

Filled with poetry and sketches of birds that

make it live up to the subtitle “A birders

journal.

The Robin Makes a Laughing Sound

Drawings, Diagrams, and Photography can spark creativity.

A labeled drawing reinforces student learning.

Journal Activity for Creative Thinkers: integrate sketches and photogroups to make sences of science.

Think about these quotes ….

Animals in Flight

Use of observation to figure out how to

make gliders for wings. Trial and error.

How People Learned to Fly

Describes attributes of animals in

flights; types of wings, how they fly.

Literacy Connection: The Concept of Flight

Observe Wonder Learn

Know Want to Know Learned

Audience Investigation

https://www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorer/roto-copter.html

Science Connection: The Concept of Flight

Know Want to Know

Learned Observe Wonder Learn

Balloon Rockets – Content, Critical Thinking, & Creativity

Design a Balloon Rocket That Will Fly the Farthest!

Using Children’s Literature in a LessonUsing Children’s Literature at

Various Points in the 5E Model

Engage Prior experiences with the Maple Leaf, Feather – Questions

Explore Paper Helicopters, Note taking, Books that pose additional Qs

Explain From investigation; student reporting out; go back and revisit “want column”;

Extend Try a different type of paper flyer; ask for examples of different things that fly such as seeds.

Evaluate Throughout the lesson; could ask them to write their own piece

Role of Connections in Meaningful Learning

• Prior knowledge is a major determinant of future learning

• In-depth understanding involves conceptually organizing knowledge which, in turn makes it accessible for later use.

• To be of value, curriculum must build cumulative knowledge used in future learning

When children put their hands on science and their minds in a book, they can go anywhere on Earth. In fact, they can fly throughout the Earth’s atmosphere and

beyond.

Contact Information

University of West Georgia

bflyguy@

Twitter: @bflyguy

Steve Rich

Shippensburg University (PA)

caroyce@aol.com

Twitter: @caroyce

Christine Anne Royce

University of West Georgia

bflywriter@comcast.net

Twitter: @bflyguy

Steve Rich

Shippensburg University (PA)

caroyce@aol.com

Twitter: @caroyce

Christine Anne Royce