Let's Talk Turkey - Nonfiction Turkey Fun!

Looking for some fun turkey reading for Thanksgiving? I love pairing both fiction and nonfiction when I do a theme, and turkey talk is no exception!

You can check out my blog post about fictional turkey stories HERE. Now let's talk about informational texts.



I'll be honest. I have really only found one good informational turkey book - All About Turkeys, by Jim Arnosky. Which is now out of print. Sigh... I wish I had multiple copies, but I only have one to share with my kiddos. Soooo.... I decided to create my own turkey text!

My kiddos start by thinking about what they already KNOW about turkeys. We make a chart and refer back to it throughout our learning. Then, the new learning begins!

We read through different fact cards filled with information about turkeys. We often use our "Coding Our Thinking" to help us be reading experts. I use these same cards with all three of my small groups, and just change the focus and scaffolding, as needed. One group works on locating information, another on main idea and a third on generating their OWN questions to go with the information.

When I've done this unit during a short week, I usually hang the cards around the room and hang a question card next to each one. Then I have students work in partners to walk around the room,, reading each card and looking for the answer to the question. We then come back together and share our answers, returning to the text (I project the cards on our Smartboard) to highlight where we found our answers.

Later in the week, we do a little true/false sort

and end our turkey talk by writing abut what we have learned (again differentiated)!

My kiddos love learning about turkeys and are proud to go home and share new facts with their families. It's the perfect way to keep everyone focused in those days up to Thanksgiving break!

You can easily create your own turkey fact cards, with research online and any informational texts you might have. If you're interested in seeing my full turkey unit, you can take a look at it in my TpT store by clicking on the image below.