Teaching early elementary students how to write reports

Once we are adults we spend large amounts of time writing reports, but it is not an easy skill to learn, and there are several types of reports.  It is good from an early age for kids to write reports, and learn how to write reports.  I like to find different ways to incorporate learning how to write reports into our lessons, like this history lesson.  We are about halfway through our

Why we started learning how to write a report

My boys are now almost finished with second grade.  They are old enough to start writing early reports and narrations of what they’ve learned.  Princess believes she can do this based solely on the fact she doesn’t want to be left out.  So, all three of my kids are starting on this important skill.  Putting off writing reports will only make learning how to write a report scary.

For our presidential reports we used, All American History 2 {affiliate link}, but you could use any of the Rookie reader president books for the early years.  The challenge with All American History 2 is you get a lot more information to synthesize, and it’s not easily accessible for young kids.  It gets them thinking a bit more.

 

So, what do I require of my kids in a presidential report?

Since this is for comprehension, and to show knowledge, I’m not worried about spelling.  I’ll correct it, but that’s not the goal of learning how to write a report.

At their age I require 2-3 sentences that tell what the president did.  I do not yet require it to be a cohesive project, that will probably come next year.

I require a picture they drew that reflects their sentences.  I allow a somewhat broad interpretation of this, which means the boys often add in soldiers, and Princess often adds in lots of flowers.

 

Examples of Presidential reports:

So, Princess has a great report for a kindergartener “Harry Truman- He [helped] [with] the [something I can’t remember what it said].  Some days I let Princess only write 1 sentence, especially when she’s struggling to come up with one.

Superman (I think) Harry Truman, He helped stop the Germany army.  He created the air force.

You’ll notice his sentences are very simple.  This is completely appropriate for his age level, and for the assignment at hand.

Batman’s: Harry Truman, He flew food to Germany, and made the air force.  I love his picture of the food being flown to Berlin during the Berlin air lift.

This is Batman’s second report (I only figured it out after parsing the top sentence, I am a knight).  President Eisenhower.  He helped make roads.  On the second paper we wrote about the Eisenhower Doctrine- We need to protect other nations from communism.

As you can see from the kids’ examples, it doesn’t have to be a big deal for the report, it just needs to be simple and something they can understand.  Next week, we’ll get into more details on the events of the 50s.

 

For more US history ideas check out my pinterest board: