Plan a Mini Research Book About a Weather Event

Help your child choose a topic they are curious about and find one or two kid-friendly books or websites. Have them write notes in a few words, not full sentences, and check the notes pages with the answer key.

Read a model about owls, then plan a mini research book about fog, hail, snow or rainbows with 3 questions, notes and sources. Research is using a source to answer a question. A note is a few words. The directions on the page read: Read the model. Read the topic. Then, write your weather. Then, in each of the 3 question boxes, write a question, 3 notes and the source. Then, write 2 words to know. Then, use your plan to write your draft on lined paper.

Yes, both. We made it for 3rd Grade informative writing, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with research writing. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

A note is a few words that keep one fact from a source, like hump stores fat, not water. The camel page turns 6 full sentences into notes of 3 to 6 words, then puts 2 notes back together in one sentence (W.3.8).

Match the question to the source. A word's meaning is in a dictionary, a place is on a map and facts about an animal are in a book about it. The source page practices this with 6 questions about Denver, the word timid and how whales breathe.

Start with something your child already wonders about, like a planet or a kind of weather. The big question page splits one question into three smaller ones, and the mini research book has three question boxes with notes and a source for each.

The hummingbird notes, camel notes and best source pages have an answer key, and so does the page that ends in a short paragraph. The 7 planners have no key, since each child researches their own topic.