Common Core-Writing a Research Paper

Oh, my gosh!  Can you hear that?  It's peace and quiet!!!!

My hubby came home early, for the first time in forever.  He took my kids down to play some basketball.  I can't tell you how amazing this feeling is. I am actually writing this post with absolute quiet and no interruptions!  I don't know how long this will last, so I am going to try to get as much in as possible.  :0)

Now,  I don't know how your districts are implementing Common Core, but in mine, we are in full swing.
Each quarter we address a new writing standard, as well as review previous standards.
In the first 9 weeks we wrote opinions.
In the second 9 weeks we wrote opinions and narratives.
Now in the third 9 weeks we are to begin writing Research papers and Informational/Expository writing.
Frankly, when I think of writing a Research paper with 6 and 7 year olds, I get a little nervous.
My idea of research is from my days of writing my thesis paper in grad school. Of course, I know it doesn't need to be that complicated, but still it's a lot of work and preparation if you want to do it right.

This week, I started off just by introducing the word "research" and using a "text" to gather information.
We wrote about The President, using the Scholastic News as our source of information.(Since his inauguration was this Monday).
Because this was one of the first times we wrote a paper where we needed to summarize, we did this together as a class. We talked about what we wanted to say... Stated how we wanted it written (in a complete sentence) and then wrote it down.

Barack Obama is our President. He lives and works in the White House. He is important.        We wrote the first 2 sentences together. Each student chose what they wanted to write for their 3rd.

 

The President signs the laws of our country. He flies in his own plane called Air Force One. The little scribble after the first sentence, is the student's attempt to copy the President's signature.

 

I asked each student to design their own cover. This is Air Force One.

Flag cover

A few more varieties.

Being it our first attempt, they all really did a great job. We will continue with summarizing information this week. Next week, we will begin a full scale research paper.   I will post more as we do this.  In between I am also getting ready for Groundhog's day and the 100th Day of School.  These are apart of my  February Fundamentals Pack. Click the links to check them out on TPT.
 Here's a peek at what we will be doing: