First-graders research, write and assemble their own reports

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — First-graders at the SeDoMocha Elementary School put recently gained knowledge on non-fiction to use by creating their own reports on animals that live in Maine and the ocean, insects and some of the over dozen species of penguins.

Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom

YOUNG RESEARCHERS — Students in the four first-grade classrooms at SeDoMoCha Elementary in Dover-Foxcroft all did their own non-fiction reports. Representing each of the four classes are, from left, Kendra Ray, Emma McGary, Susan LaBree and Abby Adkins.

    “The first grade does an author study on Gail Gibbons, she’s a non-fiction author,” first grade teacher Karen Goodman said.         So we learn about the non-fiction portions of books. We do a culminating activity of writing a non-fiction report.”
    “We all learned about non-fiction so each classroom does it a different way,” she said. “Mrs. Shay’s class does insects, Miss Madore does ocean animals, Mrs. Wentworth does Maine animals and I do penguins.” Goodman said students in each class organize their final reports in a different manner.
    “In Miss Madore’s class they do a folder report as a final project,” she said. “Mrs. Shay does a book with each of the different insects in it,” with the students’ own writing and illustrations.
    “Mrs. Wentworth does a paper bag book,” Goodman said, as this project includes descriptions of the first-graders’ animals and other facts that all slide into the book pockets. “Mine is also a book with each of the different penguins. My students typed theirs after they wrote it.”
    “Goodman said each of her 17 students picked a penguin species out of a hat prior to writing their reports. “They had a lot of fun, they enjoyed and now they have a finished product,” she said.