All students get excited when they hear the words ‘field trip’. Here are some ideas for using this excitement to connect field trips to nonfiction literacy before, during, and after the big day!
Before:
Invite students to choose nonfiction texts to read that are related to the field trip. Help younger students focus by providing bins of books that connect in some way to topics or themes that relate to the field trip. Encourage older students to make predictions about what they might experience on the field trip and have them self-select nonfiction texts based upon these predictions. Students can create text sets based upon their reading choices and present these to the class prior to the field trip.
During:
Encourage students to take a notebook and camera (or paper for sketching) to document exciting or new information or experiences while on the field trip. Groups of students can share a camera and be giving specific things to capture while on the field trip. Nonfiction texts such as field guides (for field trips related to science) or historical journals (for field trips related to social studies) can be shared with students prior to the field trip to model information-gathering processes and products.
After:
Upon returning to school, have students write thank-you notes to the field trip location/staff, highlighting specific field trip experiences and making connections between these experiences and one or more nonfiction texts. Encourage students to synthesize learning from both their text sets and their field trip notes. Have students create a written field guide based field trip experiences. Model for students how to integrate factual information into observations using mentor texts. Students can create a final product using drawings or photos and written or typed text depending on student preference. Additional options include creating a multimedia field guide in PowerPoint, Prezi, or iMovie. Encourage students to share their final projects with the class or invite parents in for a whole-class field trip debriefing. Students can create Exhibit Guides for the location they visited by working alone or in groups. These exhibit guides can be shared with the field trip site and with future students to build anticipation for the field trip.