Nonfiction Text Features: Diagram Lesson

Teaching and studying nonfiction is one of my favorite units to expose my students to.  I love that we get to take all of the foundational reading skills that they have developed and blast off to the next level of learning.  We are no longer just reading to enjoy books, but we are reading to LEARN and grow as learners.
This past week, we spent time learning about diagrams and captions.  These two features are packed with information so we spent several days really diving into them.  Much of our nonfiction reading has been done through National Geographic Kids and Hameray Publishing.  They both have an immense library of nonfiction readers that are perfect for my firsties.
For this particular lesson, we used Penguins from National Geographic Kids.  The students worked in teams of 4 to read and discover 4 traits that make penguins unique.

The focus was not on the entire book, but just on the diagram of the penguin.  Students worked to read and summarize their findings.  They took turns recording their discoveries in a 4 box.  You can grab a copy of it here.  I also included a general version that could be used with any other animal or plant diagram.

What is one of your favorite nonfiction text features to teach your students about?  Leave a comment below and let me know.