A teacher sits down to lesson plan for the upcoming week. Flipping through the manual, they see it is time to teach nonfiction text features. A slight panic develops. How can this skill be made fun for students? Never fear! Here at Lucky Little Learners, we have you covered with some resources to make this skill engaging and FUN to teach! (Bonus, these are LOW prep and can be implemented TODAY!)

Hands On Resources

Make these hands on ideas and activities come to life in your classroom!

1. Nonfiction Reading Passages

This bundle has a handful of passages featuring nonfiction text features as their primary skill. These passages are helpful when working as a whole group, small group or students on their own. (Also, if using these passages for each comprehension skill, students will be familiar with them, thus leading to successful independent work time!) Want to hear more about these passages? Check out this post: 2nd Grade Reading Comprehension Passages.

2. Text Feature Hunt

Want students to self locate text features? Here is an easy to use idea! Pass out a reading level appropriate nonfiction book to each student. Show an example of a type of text feature, captions for example. Then, set a timer and have students page through their books. When they find the caption they hold their finger on it. Walk around and check after the timer runs out. This can be repeated for several types of features. Students like this activity because of the timer challenge.

3. Nonfiction Text Features Reading Center Activity

Have students review skills with a nonfiction text features center! Centers are great for independent work, or as whole group led activities. Best part? You can put the answer sheet in a “special” spot in the classroom and let students self correct their center work!

4. Anchor Chart

Anchor charts are AMAZING for visual learners. Making a chart WITH the class will help cement learning on the selected skill. Keep these up during the week (or entire unit) for students to reference. Don't want to create an anchor chart from scratch? Our Lucky Little Toolkit has a nonfiction text feature anchor chart already created!

5. Students as Nonfiction Authors

Although this idea requires more time, it is a great way for students to show what they know about nonfiction text features. Directions:

• Fold in half and staple 3-5 pieces of paper into a blank booklet.
• Students will research and write about a nonfiction topic they are interested in. (Such as animals. places, tv shows, games, etc.)
• Students should write a sentence or fact they learn about their topic on each page.
• After the writing, they will add one nonfiction text feature to each page.

Digital Resources

Adding technology to lessons and centers brings variety and engagement. Here are our top digital nonfiction text features ideas.

Nonfiction Text Features Learning Videos

Using a video, while not always ideal, can be a great tool for visual learners and for engagement! Here are a couple videos from YouTube that can be helpful for teaching nonfiction text features.

Here's a teacher-created video showing examples of different nonfiction text features.

Here's a song about the physical parts of a book (title, author, spine, chapter headings, etc…)

Games

Games can be great for review after teaching the skill! Here are some great online options.

Nonfiction Text Features Memory: The old classic memory game matching the nonfiction text feature type with a picture example of the feature.

Identify the Text Features: This free game from Education.com is great for review that has students find and click on text feature types.

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A Ton of Nonfiction Text Features Resources in One Spot

If you are looking for more resources for your nonfiction text feature unit, you can grab all resources shown in this post (plus many more) in this pack in our shop. Lesson planning = done!

Hopefully these ideas will get students excited for nonfiction text feature learning! Want more ideas? (Like HUNDREDS more ideas!?) Hop over to our Facebook group, Lucky 2nd Grade Teachers.

Remember, together we are better!

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