Scientific Comparison Writing

My friend, Kip Bisignano, (a Delta/FOSS Sales Rep for Virginia, Maryland and DC) came to play with my class this week. We are presenting together at the Virginia Association of Science Teachers (VAST) in November on reading strategies and science. So yesterday, we used the book and the strategies with the class. The results were amazing!

We started the day by having the kids read the book: Blue Whales and Buttercups by Seeds of Science. It is an excellent book that has the students reading about how animals and plants are similar and different. They eventually get to the point that they are all related - due to the fact that all living things are made up of cells. My students loved the book and we had a great discussion!

Next we reread page 12 and 13 and brainstormed how the animals fox and wolf are similar and different using a great graphic developed by Kip. You can see how my student Darlene was able to compare two characteristics easily using this format.

Today, we came back to the graphic and we were able to write our first comparative scientific paragraphs. This is Faith's example. She did an excellent job of following the format and creating our transitional sentence.

Tomorrow we will take these drafts to computer lab where we will edit them and retype them for a published look.

I will put the FREE strategy guide that is available at www.scienceandliteracy.org any time in my documents page.  It has the whole lesson that we did - minus the graphic organizer that we used for prewriting purposes.

Another great science day!