We used this awesome pack by Teaching in Stripes to organize our thoughts. I read aloud from Whale Vs. Giant Squid, stopping before the big fight scene at the end. I wanted the kiddos to form their own opinions based on the facts presented in the book. Then they had to choose if they were Team Whale or Team Squid.
I gave them time to meet with their “teams,” and compare notes and then we wrote our opinion pieces. After everyone’s writing was complete, I finally read the battle scene and they found out who would win. They absolutely LOVED it!
They were so in love with these books that I had to think of another way to use them. So we did a review lesson on text features because these books are FULL of them! I partnered them up and each set of partners got a different Who Would Win book. They had to go on a text feature hunt and fill out a graphic organizer.
After that, they got to create a poster about their Who Would Win battle. Their poster had to included three text features. I think it’s safe to say that this project was a huge hit! They had such a great time and it made my teacher heart so happy to hear them discussing which text features would help them explain the information on their posters!
Want to try it out with your class? Click HERE to go grab the graphic organizers and poster rubric, they are a FREEBIE in my store!
