Shared Reading (The Emperor's Egg by Martin Jenkins)
Task: Investigating the emperor penguin's life cycle: non-fiction as a genre
Students will be able to identify the facts of the emperor penguin life cycle in the non-fiction genre.
Students will be able to investigate the facts of any animal's life cycle of their choice.
Students will pose questions
Students will make predictions.
Students will participate in discussion.
Students will document and record discoveries they made by themselves.
Students will analyze their findings to use as a base for their writing.
Students will look at the illustrations in the non-fiction book The Emperor's Egg by Martin Jenkins and make predictions. Students will have a teacher's guided discussion as to why/why not it is possible to have a penguin as a pet.
Teacher will read the book (transparencies) to students on overhead projector.
Teacher will emphasize the places where the facts of the emperor penguin's life cycle are described.
Students will take notes (guided by the teacher) about the emperor penguin life cycle. The teacher will use pre-prepared reading strips.
Where do emperor penguins live?
What is the climate of their environment?
What grows there?
What do emperor penguins look like?
What do they eat?
How do they move?
Are they a prey of other animals and who are their predators?
How many eggs do they have at a time?
When (season and month) does the egg hatch?
Why is it necessary to keep the egg off the ice?
How do penguins protect the egg from the ice?
Who takes care of the egg?
What do they eat when male penguins guard an egg?
How long do they have to guard the egg?
Does the female penguin help in taking care of the egg?
When does the female penguin start helping the male penguin?
Students will discuss the traits of non-fiction genre:
Are there any main characters in the story?
Who are the characters?
Are they described through any imaginary situation or only scientific facts?
Where do scientists/authors take the facts of animals' lives from?
Students will investigate the facts of a life cycle of animals of their own interest (teacher will present a few different non-fiction books about animals and insects).
Students will record the facts of their own research.
Students will specify the genre of the book they read (non-fiction or fiction).
Students will explain why they think it is non-fiction genre.