Idea Circle - Choose Your Animal or Plant

After completing the main Oh Deer activity in the GUW guide, students will use an Idea Circle approach to find additional information about the animal or plant they chose.  Each student will select a book about a specific animal or plant.  These
non-fiction books can be in the teacher’s classroom library, the school library, borrowed from public libraries or online libraries. 
​See “Resources for eBooks and Digital Media” for suggestions on finding content online.
 
Epic!’s “Living Things” or “Science and Nature” collections contain many books about animals.  Books can also be browsed by topic and filtered by grade level or reading level. “Magic Readers” are a series of books on the same animal written at different reading levels.  Some books are also available as “Read-to-Me” versions that read the text aloud to students. These features allow teachers to differentiate for reading level, delivery method and student interest. Titles include Deer, Bears, and Snakes.
 
INFOhio provides free access to BookFlix. Their “Animals and Nature” category contains many books about animals that would be appropriate for this activity. There is often a fiction and a non-fiction book paired together with each topic.

Students begin by selecting a book about an animal:

1. As they read, students fill out a graphic organizer about the needs of their animal for food, water, shelter and space. If needed, this activity could be completed as a small group working collaboratively to complete one graphic organizer.  While Oh Deer introduces the categories of habitat, the activity itself does not provide examples of animal needs. 
2. Students will share the results of their research on their animal with their small group.
3. Another option could be for students to add their animal’s needs to a class chart as they complete their individual research or shared group research.

This research can be completed during time allocated for science instruction, as a center activity, or during time allocated for reading.