I love to incorporate nonfiction into my classroom. This week we will be learning all about recycling, reducing, reusing, and rot (worms) in honor of Earth Day. We have a week full of activities planned. Here are the components of the Earth Day nonfiction part of my week.

Earth Day Resources

We began this unit last week with the driving question “How can we best care for the Earth?” We are a project-based learning school, so we always try to ask a question to help drive our instruction and spark interest.

My goal is to get through some of the big ideas from the Earth Day Nonfiction Unit. It is packed full of resources you can use to teach about recycling, natural resources, worms, and Earth Day.

In addition to the written reading passages, there are QR codes for your students to scan. Each QR code is attached to a video about Earth Day, recycling, etc. The videos are run through a site called Safeshare that takes the ads and side videos out. My students love these! There are reflection sheets to write down something they learned and are also able to draw a picture.

Vocabulary

Nonfiction text is a great way to introduce or reinforce vocabulary. The Earth Day nonfiction unit includes vocabulary cards for your pocket chart. They are simple, yet bold for easy reading.

We will make vocabulary books (included). I have my students write what the word means and then draw a picture.

There are always some vocabulary words that are hard to explain, so I love to use picture file cards. Picture files cards are pictures of what the word means, with the definition on the backside. I usually make a couple of sets of these. I laminate them for durability and place one set on our theme table and the other set I hang on our theme board.

Graphic Organizers

We will use a variety of graphic organizers to help us organize our learning and prepare for some writing.

This unit has a variety of writing papers and covers to choose from. As you can see, we will be very busy next week! All for a good cause…happy Earth Day!

To read more about the Earth Day nonfiction unit, click below or here.