Celebrate Nonfiction

Exploring the Joy of Nonfiction Reading and Writing

Having Fun with Common Core: Fun Formats for Reading Buddies

Today, we’ll look at some of the many
wonderful books created by Steve Jenkins, often with his wife Robin Page. Many
of Jenkins’s books feature a spare main text that is masterfully illustrated
with paper collage art and enhanced by an extensive backmatter full of
fascinating facts. Because Jenkins writes the text, creates the art, and
conceptualizes the design himself from the beginning of the project, the result
is books with fun, creative, distinctive formats.


As Reading Buddies work their way through
Jenkins’ books, the younger child can read the main text. Then the buddies can
flip to the back of the book, and the older child can read the relevant section
of backmatter.

Here are some possible pairings for your
consideration (All are published by Houghton Mifflin.):

 What Would You Do with a Tail Like This? and How Many Ways Can You Catch a Fly?

The Caldecott Honor recipient What Would You Do with a Tail Like This? has a wonderful guessing game format in which one double-page spread asks a question and shows intriguing bits of animal bodies and the next double-page spread answers the question and reveals the entire bodies of the animals. Over the course of the book, readers learn how a variety of animals use their noses, ears, tails, eyes, mouth, and feet.
 

How Many Ways Can You
Catch a Fly? has
a similar format, but it focuses on the different ways in which a diverse
assortment of creatures performs a particular activity. Jenkins and Page use
this structure to examine techniques for catching a fish, hatching eggs,
digging holes, and more.

These books are wonderful for provoking
discussion of animal adaptations. After students read What Would You Do with a Tail Like This? and feel comfortable with the format, you can ask them to make
predictions about how particular animals will accomplish the various tasks
presented as they read How Many Ways Can
You Catch a Fly?.

 Actual Size and Prehistoric Actual Size

This clever pair of books invites young readers to see how they measure up against a variety of different animals—some living, some extinct. Depending on the scale of the creatures being described, some of the colorful collages display the entire animal at actual scale while others can only feature what fits on the page—an elephant foot, a giant squid eye, a gorilla hand, the head of an ancient flying reptile, and even the complete body of a small dinosaur on a series of foldout pages. The presentation style introduces children to the glorious diversity of our natural world and illustrates the importance of comparison, measurement, observation, and record keeping in a truly engaging way.

After reading the books, buddies can measure and compare their own body parts and record their findings in a table. Before the students return to their separate classrooms, there can be time for whole-group sharing. There’s no doubt about it, these books inspire fun ways of satisfying, CCSS for ELA: Reading Informational Text #1 and #2.

One Response

top 25 nonfiction blog award
Return to Blog Archive

Most Popular Posts

Topics
top 25 nonfiction blog award
Return to Blog Archive

Most Popular Posts

Topics

© 2001–[current-year] Melissa Stewart. All rights reserved. All materials on this site may be copied for classroom or library use but may not be reprinted or resold for commercial purposes. This website is COPPA compliant. If you are a child under age 13 and wish to contact Melissa Stewart, please use the email address of a teacher, librarian, or parent with that adult’s permission. Webhost Privacy Policy.