Animal Articles – Informational Articles, QR Codes & Fact Sorts

Easy to read animal articles written at a middle elementary school level that include QR codes and a fact sort for informational writing.  These animal articles have been a lifesaver in my second grade classroom. We use them for animal research during our informational writing unit.

One of my greatest struggles when teaching second grade was finding on-level informational text about topics that we studied.  It is so hard to find well-written text at easier levels for elementary students who struggle to read and comprehend.

Every year, I had students write animal reports; however, the text I found in the library was written well above their reading level in book format, which is generally not linear and focused.  I had difficulty teaching students how to extract information from those kinds of texts, let alone use them for a research project.

These informational animal articles are designed to support animal research projects for elementary students, providing reading passages and QR codes that connect students to additional research sources.

Animal Informational Articles Overview

As I began my Informational Writing Unit, this became more and more apparent, so I started writing these Animal Articles.  I started with a few for our Life Cycle Unit and have expanded to include many of the Earth’s habitats.

Let me tell you a little about these Animal Articles.

Animal Articles Components

All of the Animal Articles have the same components. Each Animal Article includes:

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

Informational Article

Each animal has a two-page article with vivid color photographs of the animal. Although these are color photos, I have successfully printed them in black and white to photocopy for students.

These two pages can be laminated for repeated student use at a center, too! In addition, there is a one-page article that is the same as the two-page article but without photographs. I love using this copy for close reading because everything is on one page.

Each article has a similar format to help students navigate the text.  The subheadings match the fact sort and are common for each animal.  Topics like physical attributes, life cycle, babies, habitat, eating, etc. focus students’ attention within those paragraphs on specific facts.

Animal Articles QR Codes

Each animal also has a set of QR Codes for additional research. The QR Codes go to kid-friendly websites and videos. Most of the videos are from YouTube and run through Safeshare, so be sure that you can access Youtube at school.

I use the QR codes in a variety of ways.  Some animals, become part of our “listen to reading” station during our Daily 5 time.  Other animals become part of our science stations if we’re studying that animal or habitat.

The QR codes are just one more resource students can use to gather facts.  They are also great for students who struggle with reading.  The videos provide information orally and visually without being dependent on reading the text.  This has been great for my struggling readers.

Vocabulary and Comprehension Activities

In the past several years, we have updated all of our animal articles the additional vocabulary and comprehension activities. 

The vocabulary cards include three-part cards and matching activities as well as a Freyer model.

The note-taking and comprehension activities include graphic organizers, comprehension questions, cloze reading, and fact sorts.

How to Use the Fact Sort

Each animal has a Fact Sort page so that students can sort facts and write about the animal.  The fact sort page is sentences from the article.  The sentences are very basic, subject-predicate, sentences.  Students cut apart the sentences and sort them by attribute, action, and environment.

You can read more about how I use fact sorts in my Informational Writing Unit.  The facts sorts are one of the key ways I help students determine which facts are related to each other and apply that process to writing a paragraph.  It gives students another opportunity to work with the information.

How I use the Animal Articles, QR Codes and Fact Sorts

I love using these Animal Articles throughout the year for a variety of purposes. We use some to study about Antarctic Animals in January and others to do our Life Cycle Unit in the spring.

Still other sets we use for our Informational Writing Unit. It is awesome having the resources at my fingertips for nonfiction animal study throughout the year.

How to Purchase

Each animal article is available separately by habitat and in a complete BUNDLE. There’s a variety of options to meet your classroom needs.

If you’ve enjoyed Informational Writing Tools all the research your students will need to do is included in these Animal Articles resources. There are 46 different animals to choose from.

All of these Animal Articles can be purchased on my web site or on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Free Frog Informational Article

Are you interested in a FREE Animal Article, QR Code Sheet & Fact Sort all about Frogs? This article is included in my Life Cycle set of articles, but you can get it here for free.

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.