Fun Biography Projects: Flap Books and Historical Newspapers

I think I have made a groove in my couch with my ample bottom. I’ve binge-watched Dexter on Netflix (because I’m all caught up on Law and Order SVU). I’ve consumed cup after cup of delicious coffee, pretending that using Splenda instead of sugar is healthy enough. I pour in the Splenda with my left hand, and with my right, I sqoodge on the whipped cream. Sometimes I carry a few marshmallows with me for good measure, in case the whipped cream melts and there’s still more coffee left.

Ooooh! I just had an idea! I can sprinkle cinnamon on the whipped cream! YEAH!

Don’t judge me. It’s November.

This November, many of our grade levels worked on teaching literary nonfiction, specifically, biography. We taught the elements of the genre and explored them in a few texts. After creating a matrix, our teachers were ready to wrap up the unit the week before Thanksgiving.

Snowflake Bentley Biography Flap Book

One great way some of our grade levels had students demonstrate their learning was this folded flap book about Snowflake Bentley. I love Snowflake Bentley – he’s such a great person to read about and contributed so much to science! This little folded flap book documents his traits, motivations, challenges, and how he overcame his challenges.

On the outside, we illustrated Snowflake Bentley. On the inside, we wrote the text evidence and the inference we made about him.

Snowflake Bentley biography flap book with flaps for traits, challenge, motivations and how they overcame it

Snowflake Bentley flap book opened to show text evidence and character traits

Compare and Contrast Across Biographies

The way we wrapped up our unit in the fifth grade was by making connections across the biographies and using them to compare/contrast the people we read about. Check out this post to see the matrix we used to connect across biographies!

Then we used the information in the matrix to make a folded flap book comparing/contrasting two people we read about. You can find this folded flap book in my Nonfiction Pack

Compare and contrast flap book with a Venn diagram for Helen Keller and Snowflake Bentley

Compare and contrast flap book opened to show how Helen Keller and Snowflake Bentley are alike

Founding Fathers Biography Newspapers

Another one of our favorite biography projects was having students write newspaper articles about historical people. Students worked in small groups to research an important person and write an “Extra! Extra! Read All About It!” newspaper article about his life: when and where he was born, important events, his contributions, and when he died. Each group also made a paper figure of their person to display with their newspaper.

We made connections to our social studies unit about the founding fathers and the American Revolution, so our newspapers featured Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, Patrick Henry, and George Washington.