5.L.2.2
5.L.2.2 Classify the organisms within an ecosystem according to the function they serve: producers, consumers, or decomposers (biotic factors). Last year, I purchased the "Follow That Food Chain" series. These non-fiction adventure books are set up like a game. Students begin by reading the introduction and then choosing a tertiary consumer from the ecosystem featured in each book. From there, they read about the animal and continue to make choices that result in either survival and continuation along the food chain (which really becomes more of a food web) or a "dead end". Although my students can learn plenty from reading and interacting with this book, I was looking for a way to document their learning. I decided to create a guided reading focus sheet for this purpose. You can get a copy of it here. Basically, students record the tertiary animal they chose. Then they read and respond with 3 facts they learned about the animal. N...