Amazing Animals of the Amazon! 1st Grade Thematic Unit

We spent the last 2 weeks of school researching and writing about animals that live in the Amazon rainforest.  It turned out to be the perfect way to keep the kids motivated and engaged.

Amazing Animals of the Amazon Rainforest - available at Teachers Pay Teachers for $7.50

I am so impressed with how far my kiddos have come with their writing! I seriously questioned whether they would be able to reach the 1st Grade Common Core Standard for writing:

• W.1.2  Write informative/explanatory texts in which students name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.

At the beginning of the year, they couldn't identify a topic sentence, much less write one!  They sure did make progress throughout the year!  As the kids learned about animals in different habitats, they became more and more independent with their writing.

With this unit, the students filled out their animal research webs as I read aloud information from informative books and websites.  (Note: I've shown the color copies, but I always give the students black and white versions. Both are included in the rainforest unit).

Once they had their facts listed, they independently wrote their rough drafts.

Next, they brought their rough drafts and editing sheets to me and we worked on editing together. We used their editing sheets to double check for content and mechanics.

As always, I directed them to our classroom resources (rainforest word bank and our popcorn word wall) for spelling corrections.


Finally, they each wrote their neat sheets!


At the end of the unit, we put all of their writing and craftivities into the pocket books to take home!


Here are some of the fun craftivities we made in the our rainforest unit!

Click here to look at this unit in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.