Arctic Animals | Reading Comprehension, Winter, Informational Books, Games

Do you want to take your students’ learning to a whole new level? If so, then this Arctic Animals Unit is perfect for you! Not only does it explore the arctic tundra habitat, animal adaptations, migration, food chains, and nonfiction text features, but it also helps students understand comprehension, analyzing, inferring, and more. Plus, it’s amazing how much fun students can have while they’re learning – they may not even realize they’re taking their education to the next level!

Included in this bundle:

The Arctic Tundra Introduction

-The Arctic Tundra Information Sheet/Passage and Think and Respond Questions (In my classroom I printed/laminated so that I could use it each year!) If you don’t want to use ink it also prints well in grey-scale.

-Tundra KID Vocabulary – This printable can be used to record vocabulary throughout the unit! Students must write the key word, write some information about the word, and then draw a picture.

-Arctic Animal Adaptations Reading Passage – (I printed the passage in color and then glued them together so that there would be a front/back. I then laminated them so that I could use the passages each year. Laminating is great because students can write directly on the passages with an Expo.)

-Arctic Animal Adaptations Drawing and Writing – Students must show what they learned from the passage.

Arctic Animals Explorations

Includes 6 original books with photographs of each animal – Can be viewed as a PowerPoint or printed and bound. The comprehension questions go along with each book.

Arctic Hare (Informational book/PowerPoint presentation, comprehension questions, graphic organizer, camouflage craft and research activity)

Arctic Fox (Informational book/PowerPoint presentation, comprehension questions, graphic organizer, writing paper, craft.

Musk Ox (Informational book/PowerPoint presentation, comprehension questions, graphic organizer, writing paper, craft, compare and contrast the arctic fox and musk ox)

Snowy Owl (Informational book/PowerPoint presentation, comprehension questions, graphic organizer, owl pellet passage and questions, owl pellet investigation, writing paper, snowy owl hat)

Walrus (Informational book/PowerPoint presentation, comprehension questions, graphic organizer, writing paper, craft, blubber science)

Beluga Whale (Informational book/PowerPoint presentation, comprehension questions, writing paper)

The informational books and questions focus on nonfiction text features, finding the main idea, using context clues to find the meaning of words, finding reasons to support the various points given by the author, explaining the importance of diagrams or words in bold, making inferences, etc.

Arctic Animal Cards and Response Sheet (20 Arctic Animals)

-These cards are perfect for giving students the opportunity to sort and classify animals by their characteristics.

Arctic Animal Fact Sheets

-The sheets are perfect for getting students motivated and interested in arctic animal research! Each sheet includes a photograph and a few interesting facts about each arctic animal. (polar bear, lemming, arctic fox, arctic hare, arctic wolf, caribou, moose, musk ox, sea otter, arctic tern, bald eagle, puffin, snowy owl, arctic woolly bear moth, beluga whale, Greenland shark, narwhal, walrus, harp seal)

Reading Passages, Worksheets, and Activities

-Informational Passages & Questions - The passages allow students to write directly on the text so that they can support their answers with reasons. (Main idea, details, subheadings, words in bold, giving evidence from the text to support various statements, author’s purpose)

-It’s All About the Food Chain

-Arctic Insects

-Arctic Mammals

-Arctic Birds

-Arctic Plants

Main Idea and Details Activities

-Frozen Main Ideas (Students must read a group of words and determine the main idea.)

-Arctic Main Ideas (Students must look at a picture, write a sentence to represent the main idea, and then write two details that support the main idea.)

-What’s the Main Idea? (Students must read a passage, determine the main idea, and write two supporting details)

-What Doesn’t Belong? (Students must find the detail that doesn’t belong in the text.)

Language Arts Activities

-Arctic ABC Order (Students must write words in abc order.)

-Irregular Tenses (Students sort and color irregular verb tenses.)

-Soaring into Commas (Students must add commas where needed.)

-Lay vs Lie Activities (Two printables and one sort)

-Expand the Sentence

-Opinion Writing

-Write a Friendly Letter

Reading Response Worksheets

-SQ3R Reading Response Sheet {nonfiction} – While using this strategy, students will need to survey the book and then form questions to guide their reading. After reading the book to the class, I usually let my students pair up and retell the story to a friend. We then get back together and I show each page of the book to allow time for students to determine if they left anything important out of their retelling.

-Character Traits

-Character Comparison

-Character Change

-Central Message

-Making Connections

-Setting

-Visual Images

Interactive Notebook

This resource is a thematic supplement to your reading response journals, science journals, interactive reading notebook, etc.

If you do not use journals, you could also glue on construction paper.

The following standards are addressed: RL.1, RL.2, RL.3, RL.5, RL.9, RI.1, RI.2, RI.3, RI.7

I have designed each page so that there is limited cutting. Simply cut the pages in half, cut on the dotted lines, and add glue to the spine.

Table Headers