The product I’m reviewing for you today is Gina’s Text Feature Pack, and I feel so lucky. It is jam-packed with everything you need to teach nonfiction text features thoroughly. Just look at all the pages. The product includes detailed anchor charts that can be projected, mounted for display, or used as visuals for small group lessons. Gina included every… single… feature possible, and they are *very* detailed.

Here is a close-up of one.  My copy was black and white, however, Gina has them in color.

Gina included arrow shaped bookmarks for students to use with nonfiction texts to mark where they found the feature and what the feature explains.  I loved using these with my students as so often they can find the feature, but the explanation part falls flat.  Students need to utilize text features to improve their understanding, so it worked out well for them to explain the feature on the back of the arrow during the lesson.

The product is very user friendly and thorough. My students loved doing the feature scavenger hunt which we completed in pairs. This is one student’s paper from the activity. He chose a book about space.  Luckily, it had most of the features.  Some nonfiction books come up short though. One tip I would pass on is for the teacher to preselect the nonfiction books just to make sure many features are included. I had previewed the options, so we avoided that issue.  I have students who hate to lose (sound familiar??), so I sure didn’t want frustration with faulty books.

Another activity my students enjoyed was the I Have, Who Has game.  We used it in teams during our guided reading lesson.  This activity works well for reinforcing those tricky definitions.  So many children confuse terminology, so multiple sessions are a must for mastery.  If you look closely, you can see what nice definitions Gina included as well as the formatting.

The final piece to the set was a Text Features Bingo game.  The teacher places all the terms in a bucket and calls them one by one.  Students have to locate the feature in their book before they can cross them off.  The students set the board up themselves, so they are able to look ahead through their book to make sure the feature is included.  We had a great time with this activity, and in fact, my kids have begged me to play again. I expect this will be one to pull out again in the coming weeks after testing.

As you can see, this product will not disappoint. Gina has it in her store for $6.25, but this weekend, it is 20% off, so it’s right at $5.00.  If you are interested in it, you can hop on over to her store by clicking the product collage to the left or you can enter the Rafflecopter to win a free copy (and come back to purchase if you don’t).

Thanks so much Gina for sharing your great ideas and hard work with me. If my readers would like to see what Gina’s reviewing of mine, you can hop over by clicking her blog button below.

To check out the other Stop, Swap, and Roll posts, you can check out the post listings below.  Enjoy your day, and I hope you’ll come back soon!