Endangered Animals

I start this unit by showing the class several videos on the different parts of writing a report.  The strand is W.3.2.  It is a third grade level strand, but the ideas can be built upon for higher grades.  The kids take notes on the videos on the website's  worksheets or in their notebooks.

Students are assigned an animal and they research it on this website.  They must find information on habits, habitat, appearance, endangered status, and conservation efforts of their animal.  The information found will be put into a graphic organizer as a base for their report.

The students will take the info found in the last step and add it to an interactive graphic organizer from this site.  I model how to fill one out and save it.  once the kids are finished with the organizer, it is printed out and used to write their report.

Students will use Google drive to write their first draft, revise, edit, and ultimately publish their work.

Students will copy and paste or upload their published expository piece to kidblog.  They will then read each other's work and add comments of feedback using because statements.  (EX:  I agree that the African Lion should be saved because they are an important part of the food chain.  Or I feel you should have been more clear about the Snow Leopard's appearance because I thought it was yellow like a regular leopard).