Informational Writing Tools for Elementary Animal Reports and Paragraph Writing

Give your students extra support as they learn how to write informational pieces with this flexible Informational Writing Tools resource. This packet is designed to enhance your informational writing unit with practical writing activities, organizers, anchor charts, checklists, and publishing pages that help students build stronger informational paragraphs and reports.

This is not a complete writing unit or program. Instead, it is a collection of classroom-tested tools that can be used alongside your existing informational writing lessons, texts, videos, animal research, or science topics.

What’s Included

This informational writing packet includes a variety of tools to support students through the writing process:

• Sentence sorts
• Publishing page with lines and picture space
• Expanding sentence practice pages
• Two-way sorts for introductory sentences
• Student writing checklist
• Informational writing anchor charts
• Additional graphic organizers
• Title pages and cover pages for student reports
• Animal-themed writing and research support pages

The animals highlighted in this resource include:

• Sea turtles
• Spade foot toads
• Wolves
• Ladybugs
• Bats
• Polar bears
• Caribou
• Penguins

Important Note

Informational texts are not included in this packet. When applicable, suggested resources such as texts or videos are referenced so students can gather facts. You may use those resources or choose your own books, articles, websites, videos, or classroom materials to help students learn about each animal.

Skills Covered

This resource helps students practice important informational writing skills, including:

• Writing introductory sentences
• Expanding simple sentences
• Sorting facts and details
• Organizing information
• Planning an informational paragraph
• Using graphic organizers
• Adding facts to support a topic
• Publishing a final informational writing piece
• Completing simple animal reports
• Checking writing with a student-friendly checklist

Ways to Use This Resource

Use these informational writing tools in a way that fits your classroom, students, and writing topics. They work well for:

• Second grade informational writing lessons
• Animal research projects
• Small group writing instruction
• Writing centers
• Whole-group mini lessons
• Science and writing integration
• Paragraph writing practice
• Report writing support
• Informational writing review
• Early finisher activities

You can use the included animal pages or adapt the tools to fit other nonfiction topics your class is studying.

Why Teachers Like It

Teachers appreciate this resource because it provides flexible, easy-to-use writing supports without requiring a full scripted unit. The sentence sorts, anchor charts, organizers, and publishing pages can be used throughout an informational writing unit to reinforce key writing skills and help students move from gathering facts to writing a clear paragraph or report.

This packet is especially helpful for students who need structure when planning, organizing, and expanding their informational writing.

Additional Resources

This product is also included in the Elementary Writing Tools Bundle, which offers savings of over 20%.

Additional informational animal article resources are also available by habitat, including:

• African Animals
• Rainforest Animals
• Life Cycle Animals
• Coral Reef Animals

Those related products include informational articles, research pages with QR codes, and fact sort sheets similar to the sorts included in this packet.

This Informational Writing Tools resource is a helpful addition to any elementary informational writing unit, especially for second grade teachers looking for sentence sorts, graphic organizers, anchor charts, checklists, publishing pages, and animal report templates. Use these nonfiction writing tools to support paragraph writing, animal research, report writing, and informational writing instruction in your classroom.