African Animals for Kids Informational Text Articles About Animals

Engaging students in reading and writing about high-interest topics, like African animals for kids, can be achieved through the use of real text. Students need on-level information text in order for teachers to teach informational writing. These articles about animals are specifically designed for kids, providing a perfect resource to learn about animals and develop their skills in writing about informational topics.

Some of my most popular blog posts have been about how I teach expository writing in a second-grade classroom. I created a product filled with the Informational Writing Tools that I used every year.

Why I Created the African Animal Articles for Kids

But, the one thing that I had difficulty finding was good informational articles that my students could read. I needed something that was simple enough for kids to not only read, but write about, that fit on one page, and that had all the facts and details in an easy-to-read format.  I often chose to research an animal based on the informational text I could find!  That’s not the ideal way I wanted to teach!  

While there are a ton of resources available for students to read, the text isn’t always the most well-written, and for my second graders who are still struggling with multi-syllabic decoding, the words and sentence structure were just too hard!  I found a lot of text for first grade and plenty of informational articles for the older kids, but nothing that was just right for my second graders.

I created these African Animal Articles for kids so that my own students could read, research, and write about their favorite topics!

What is Included in the African Animals Informational Articles

There are many resources included in the African Animal Articles that will allow your students to deepen their understanding of African animals and how to do animal research reports.

Included in this African Animal Articles Teaching Resource are:

• Vocabulary Cards with key terms from the reading passage
• Informational Article in two formats (with and without photos)
• Websites for additional research: QR Codes & a Google Site
• Graphic Organizers for note-taking
• Comprehension Activities such as short answer and cloze reading
• Fact Sorts so that students can organize the facts to then write about
• Summary Pages
• Writing Pages for a mini-report

Teachers can focus on one animal a week for a period of time or have their whole class study different African Animals in partners.  These articles about animals could also be used for individual research reports.  The possibilities are endless.

African Animal Informational Text in Two Formats – with and without pictures

All of the African Animal Informational Articles come in two formats. One format is one page without any images. This format is easy to photocopy and students can concentrate on just the words on the page.

The second format is two pages long and includes color photographs. While it does include color photos, the two-page article can also be printed in black and white.

Vocabulary Cards about African Animals

Three-part vocabulary cards are included. You can display these on your science wall or cut them apart for students to match up. You can see two of the vocabulary cards above. These vocabulary cards help students develop tier 2 and tier 3 vocabulary.

Website Resources for Further Research about African Animals

Also included are QR Codes that read to websites and videos about African Animals specifically designed for kids. Students and teachers can use these websites and videos for additional research. QR Codes are included in all of my animal articles. NEW in this resource is a Google Site that includes all of the videos and links in one place.

Note-Taking Graphic Organizers & Comprehension Activities that Scaffold Learning

These articles about animals also include two different note-taking sheets, a variety of comprehension activities, and mini-report forms. There are plenty of ways for students to work with the information in the animal articles.

How to Purchase the African Animals Articles

The African Animals BUNDLE of articles can be purchased on my website and on Teachers Pay Teachers.

---

Are you interested in a FREE resource for your Informational Writing Unit? Click below for a FREE Informational Article about Frogs. This Animal Article includes a two-page article with color photos, a one-page article with only text, QR codes, and a fact sort.