Last week our story was the riveting selection, “A Walk in the Desert.”  It is not the most exciting thing to read, but the desert is a topic of interest to seven year olds and I wanted to capitalize on that.  I decided to use this selection as a tool for “researching” the desert.  The first read of the selection story I always have the kiddos listen to the audio version.  The next day I buddied up the kiddos and had them read the selection and fill out this graphic organizer together.  They did a great job.

The categories of the graphic organizer correspond to the Desert Book the kids made the next day.  I hung up posters of each part of the graphic organizer (which I did not get a picture of!!) and collected the student responses onto the poster pages so the kids could see what their classmates had come up with too.
The next couple of days the kiddos worked at writing their research book about the desert.  They really got into it.  I let them work around the room (flexible seating anyone?) and use the class posters, their graphic organizer and the reading book for reference.   I think they turned out GREAT!