Going Batty

1. Tell students they are going to go batty today. Tell students they will first watch a nonfiction video on bats to learn more about them. Tell them to listen for characteristics of bats they didn't know before the video. Show the nonfiction video Bats by Night | Wild Detectives.

2. Before reading tell students their reading purpose is to gather information about bats. Read aloud Stellaluna by Janell Cannon to the class. This book can be projected for students to choral read. Explain that the book is fiction or a 'made up' story.  Explain that we can often learn factual information by reading a fiction book. Explain that fiction books can have things that aren't factual, but they can also have some factual information as well.

3. Have students turn and talk with a partner about the information they heard that they know could be true because it was in the nonfiction video. Have students fold a sheet of paper in half and write Stellaluna on one side and Bats on the other. Have them write the information they gained under Stellaluna.

4. Explain to students that they are now going to listen to a nonfiction book or informational book about bats. Remind students their reading purpose is to gather characteristics of bats. Read aloud Bats by Gail Gibbons to the class. Have students turn and discuss with a partner the information they gained about bats from this book. Then have the students write down the information under Bats.

5. Allow students to turn and talk with a partner and discuss what was the same about both books and what was different. Students will use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the two books read aloud. They may refer back to their folded paper. Students can use the Interactive Venn Diagram Tool.

6. Students will transfer their Venn Diagram information to a written response on your preferred learning management platform. Remind students they should write in complete sentences telling at least 3 details that are different between the two books and at least 3 that are the same. Remind students to think about the characteristics of bats as they do this task and go back to the text as needed to see how bats are depicted.

7. After students have written their posts, they will read other students' posts and find one thing they didn't have in their post or something they found interesting and respond to the post accordingly using complete sentences.