research report 2nd grade

How to Explode Student Engagement with this Habitat Research Project

One HUGE 2nd grade standard is researching and learning about animals and their adaptations. Students LOVE this unit, but teachers can be intimidated by the overwhelming pressure involved in guiding student research at such a young age. I love doing this 2nd grade animal research project with my students every March! This project has been reworked for a digital platform as well .

I love to start by playing a Brain Pop Jr, Flocabulary or YouTube video for my kids on all of the different habitats that exist. Typically, we have previously researched habitats during our social studies unit before starting this writing project, so they already have the background knowledge.

Then, I let students pick the habitat they are most interested in studying. From there, they pick 3-4 animals that live in the habitat that they would like to research more about. We use National Geographic Kids , Epic! Books and library books [all free resources] to learn about our animals.

2. RESEARCH/PLANNING

The next day, I model my own notes for students. Then, I give students lots of time to research their animals and take notes. It is really important that you are walking around the room and guiding students during this time.

If you have a struggling group of writers, I like to work with them at the back table during this time. We all research the same animals and take notes together. This helps them build confidence and feel sure about their writing in future days.

3. DRAFTING

I break drafting days up into 2 days so that students can really focus on the craft of what they are writing. I also always model before releasing students to write on their own.

Depending on what we have covered so far in the year, I encourage students to be sure to add:

• embedded definitions
• transition words
• conjunctions
• adjectives, adverbs and prepositions where appropriate
• 3-4 details per fact

4. PUBLISHING/GRADING

On the last day for each animal (typically Friday), I give students time to publish. While they publish, I model then ask them to add a map and diagram to their writing. I also show them how to grade themselves on the rubric, so they can double check that they are not missing anything.

After they finish, I give them free time to explore other animals in their habitat while I grade their writing. I find grading at the end of each animal rather than at the end of the entire project saves me a TON of time.

We repeat steps 2-4 for either 3 or 4 animals. Some students may work faster, while some may take a bit more time on each step. I try to adjust the project to be appropriate for the majority of the class.

When the project is done, I try to find a special way for us to share our work. This can include sharing to younger buddies, parents or doing an author’s chair.

Since they work so hard on this project, we make a BIG DEAL out of the finished project, and I typically send it home with parents during conferences. It makes a great writing portfolio and talking piece with parents.

Teaching digitally or wanting to add a digital component to your writing block? This project can also be completed in a digital format . Students will go through the same process, completing all of their work on Google Slides rather than writing using paper and pencil.

Grab the resources pictured above here:

Do you teach about a 2nd grade animal research project each year? Drop your ideas in the comments below!

Some other posts you might find helpful are:

• Teaching Animal Habitats During Science Ideas
• Animal Adaptations Writing Project
• Life Science Unit: Animal Adaptation

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Writing Unit of Study: Animal Research Project

This free animal research project will provide you with a writing unit of study that will help you build excitement about writing informational text in your classroom.

You can download this free animal research project to help your writers develop their research and writing skills.

This project will be a great fit for your first, second or third grade writing workshop.

This is another free resource for teachers and homeschool families from The Curriculum Corner.

Why should I introduce my students to research through animal study?

Animal research can be a great topic for writing informational text because students tend to be curious about animals.

Nothing seems to spark interest in most kids like learning about animals in our world. Turn their enthusiasm into an engaging animal research writing project.

They can take the time to learn about different habitats and diets.

You can also encourage students to expand their vocabulary by having them create a glossary to accompany their writing.

About this animal research project

Within this post you will find over 30 pages of anchor charts, mini-lesson ideas, writing planners and graphic organizers.

The unit will help guide your students through the complete process. In the end, you will be helping to teach your students how to write their own pieces of informational text.

The intended end product for students is an animal booklet that they can staple together to share with others.

Students who are ready for more advanced work, can create a larger project with less direction.

A description of the mini-lessons

Lesson 1: introduction.

• Begin the unit by having the students brainstorm a list of animals that they might see everyday.
• Then, have them brainstorm a list of animals they see when they visit the zoo or walk in the forest. You can do this on the blank anchor chart provided or on cart paper.
• Another option is to place students in groups. They could work to create a list together.  
• You might assign each group a continent and have them find animals that live there.
• Pull the class together and have each group share what animals they found that live on their continent.

Lesson 2: Noticings

• Next you might want to get your students familiar with common characteristics about informational texts that teach about animals.
• Have them work in pairs or small groups to go through some books and record their “noticings” about the writing.
• Then come together in a community circle to discuss those noticings and create a class anchor chart.

Lesson 3: Opinion vs. Facts

• Before getting truly into this unit, you might need to conduct a lesson on opinions vs. facts.
• After a brief discussion you can use the giraffe paragraph provided in our resources to give your students some practice differentiating between the two. This paragraph contains both opinions and facts.
• With your class read through the paragraph and record facts and opinions on the T-chart.
• Discuss both sides and how they are different from each other.
• A black & white copy of this giraffe paragraph has also been provided.  You can have them work in pairs or groups to distinguish between the facts and opinions.
• If you need more resources for your students surrounding fact & opinion check out our   Fact & Opinion Sort .

Lesson 4: Choosing a Topic for the Animal Research Project

• We want to help students to narrow their topic choices by giving them some guidance.
• Gather students and begin a discussion about choosing an animal research topic.
• For this lesson we have provided two pages where students can individually brainstorm the animals they are interested in.
• You might have students work in groups or independently to make their choice. Conference with students as needed to help.
• Don’t shy away from letting more than one student research about the same animal.  This can be a great way to promote group work. It might also help out with some of your literacy center choices throughout this unit.

Lesson 5: Good Places to Find Information about an Animal

• At this age we want students to begin to understand that all they read online about animals isn’t always true. Sometimes writing might sound true without being filled with facts.
• Show students two possible places to find information online about their animal. One should be a trusted site with reliable and accurate information. Another should be a site that perhaps a child has created.  (There are many that you can find if you search.)
• Pose these questions: Is everything on the internet true? Why?  How can you tell? Why is it important for your research writing to contain accurate information?

Lesson 6: Taking Notes

• Sometimes giving students resources and a blank sheet of notebook paper can be too overwhelming for them. Some students will copy word for word. Others might feel overwhelmed.  We need to guide them to read and pull out facts & relevant information to use later in their writing.
• For this lesson we have provided four templates for note-taking that you might choose to use for your students.
• You might need to provide different organizers to students depending on their needs.
• You will want to model the organizers your students are use. Show them how to take notes as they read.
• After initial teaching, you may find that you need to pull small groups for extra practice. Others might benefit from a conference as you take a look at the notes they are taking.

Lesson 7: Word Choice in Research Writing

• To help students think about making their writing more interesting, have them brainstorm words about their animal.
• Together brainstorm words that would be appropriate for animals. They might add words about what they look like, their movement, their habitats, their life cycles, their diets, etc. You can create a class anchor chart on the page provided.  You might even think about using the real life picture of the wolf in the download. This can get the students to begin thinking of more interesting words for animals (fierce, mighty, strong, etc).
• Then, pass out the individual brainstorm pages. Students can use the anchor chart as a guide to begin their own word choice pages about their animal. This might be a good partner activity as well.

Lesson 8: Writing Sketch for the Animal Research Project

• Next, you can model the writing sketch planner for your class.
• One idea to help your students narrow down all of the information they have learned about their animals is to give them a specific number of animals facts that they can focus on.
• Each of these facts can serve as the actual text that they will put on each page of their animal research book. Or the facts could serve as a focus for each paragraph in their writing.
• You might find that this would be a good mini-lesson to do with smaller groups of children.

Lesson 9: Creating a Table of Contents

• Another idea that can be a writing planner AND a page in their animal research book is the table of contents. Pull out one of the Table of Contents pages from the resources provided and model how to fill in the blanks on each page.
• This page will then serve as their Table of Contents (with a focus discussion on what that is and the purpose it serves) and also their writing planner so they know what they will put in the pages of their booklet.

Lesson 10: Creating a Glossary

• There are two pages provided in the resources that might help your students to learn to pull out topic specific words to put into a glossary for the end of their animal research book.
• Be sure to model how you would like for your students to use these organizers (keeping in mind that you may need to copy more than one page if there are more words than the page provides for).
• If your students need a refresher on ABC order check out these links for some added practice/review: ABC Order Task Cards & Fry Word ABC Order Task Cards

Lesson 11: Writing Your Animal Research

• You will decide on the best method for your students to showcase their published animal research.
• You may want your students to use their own creativity in the texts that they write and share. If you’d like a first experience to provide a bit more guidance, we have provided two different sets of pages for booklets.
• One is more guided and the other has less structure and smaller lines for more writing.  15 pages are provided so that you or students can pick what fits their needs.
• This “lesson” may actually become a series of lessons if you choose to model how each page can be used.  (We have also included a page with simple writing lines in case students need less guidance than the booklet pages provided.)

Lesson 12: Labeling Pictures

• One final lesson idea that pairs well with writing informational text is to teach your students how to label pictures.
• Since most nonfiction writing has real photographs, students can find some pictures online to print out and label for their booklet.  Hand-drawn pictures are also great if you would rather encourage some or all of your students in that direction.
• Whatever you choose, show your class how to effectively label a picture so that it teaches the reader more.  You can use the picture of the polar bear provided to model how to add words or even short facts as labels.  (For example if the simple label “fur” wouldn’t add additional information to the book, you might teach them to label it with a short fact such as “dense fur protects the animal’s skin from the weather”.
• To make this idea more user friendly, you might want them to use the page of blank white boxes provided to write their labels for their pictures.  Then all they need to do is cut them out and glue them to a printed picture.

Lesson 13: Writing Celebration

As always, find a way to celebrate your students’ writing.  

Invite guests (younger students or special adults) to read the books with your young authors. You might simply want to pair or group them, or some students might choose to present their book to everyone.  

Provide some light snacks if possible to give it a party atmosphere and pass out the author certificates to each child for his/her hard work.

You can download this free writing unit of study here:

Writing Download

As with all of our resources, The Curriculum Corner creates these for free classroom use. Our products may not be sold. You may print and copy for your personal classroom use. These are also great for home school families!

You may not modify and resell in any form. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Christine E.

Saturday 8th of May 2021

Thank you so much for this resource and the many pages that I can use in my homeschooling. It is exactly what I've been looking for to help me get my kids to write about our animal units! You are doing a great job, keep up the amazing work you do. I appreciate the hard work you put into putting these together.

Planning a Dynamic Writing Workshop - The Curriculum Corner 123

Saturday 14th of July 2018

[…] Animal Research […]

Editable Writing Management Binder - The Curriculum Corner 123

Friday 3rd of March 2017

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The Brown Bag Teacher

Teach the Children. Love the Children. Change the World.

January 12, 2020

Organizing Research in 1st & 2nd Grade

Independent research in 1st and 2nd Grade is not something that just magically happens. Organizing writing is not something that just happens automatically. Both of these skills have to be explicitly modeled and scaffolded for students. The great news? When given the opportunity, students rise. The Common Core Standards ask our 1st and 2nd grade students to “Participate in shared research and writing projects”, as well as, “…gather information from provided sources to answer a question.” Our students are very capable of participating in real-world research with the appropriate scaffolds, supports, and explicit instruction. But how do we get there?

Where Do We Get Our Research in 1st & 2nd Grade?

Initially, research in 1st and 2nd Grade begins with books ( Pebble Go and National Graphic Kids are some of our favorites). I’ll also print articles and books from Reading AZ and Read Works if they are available. (If you have RAZ Kids, then you can just assign the Reading AZ texts to specific students and they can access them online. #savethetrees). Starting with print resources help me better manage the research and allows us to learn basic research skills before integrating technology.

Then, we slowly branch to ebooks using EPIC . I’m able to create topic specific collections for students and share them directly to their EPIC accounts. From there, we model using videos from YouTube ( SciShow Kids ). Now, the SciShow Kids videos are on Epic , so it’s even safer!! (Note – These are 6 and 7 year olds. In my classroom, they will not have the privilege or responsibility to freely roam the internet or YouTube.)

Finally we branch into online databases (all KY schools have free access to Kentucky Virtual Library) and teacher-chosen websites. I link specific websites students are allowed to visit from Google Classroom. As we explore these online resources, we have frequent conversations about internet safety and internet expectations. When online, our choices should always help us become better readers, writers, and humans.

Scaffolding research collection in this way allows me the opportunity to model expectations for each resource and how to use it, as well as, ensure students are safe.

Why Organize Research in 1st & 2nd Grade?

Organizing and structuring writing is not a skill that is innate within students. Students have to be explicitly taught executive functioning skills – such as organization. Additionally, when we research I don’t want students just copying down an entire book or webpage. The world’s most random collection of information will not be helpful in sharing our learning down the road. Researching in 1st and 2nd Grade means we invest the time to learn, read, model, practice, and tweak together.

When teaching students to gather and organize information, there are DOZENS of structures for doing it. As a teacher, I typically pick 3-4 different ways that are developmentally appropriate for my 1st and 2nd graders, as well as, lend themselves to the types of research we will be doing.

Planning of Instruction

Reading and writing are forever connected and they should be. We can leverage each one to ensure that students see both subjects in context, as well as, part of their daily lives. Additionally, as I am preparing for our research unit , we will leverage whatever we are learning in science and/or social studies. This ensures students have the background to do specific research about a topic, rather than “All About Monkeys”.

As new strategies for organizing research are explored we do not abandon all the others. Rather, the strategies we learn are ones that can easily be combined. Sketch noting is the best example of this. It can be a part of a concept map, questions and answers, and/or creating subtopics.

As I introduce ways to organize writing , I will typically do it as a part of our reading or science mini-lessons. The strategy is modeled in the context of content and then, we practice again together during writing. Next, students typically work in partners to try the strategy out and ultimately, they work independently. Some students will need more teacher support in independently researching and that’s okay.

Sketch Noting

Sketch noting is typically the first way students to collect research. It is the most kid-friendly and non-threatening. As a class, we read a text from our science or social studies learning and then, consider the big ideas. (At this point, we haven’t talked about developing a research question, so our information gathering is broad.) We talk about the ideas and what symbols or pictures represent them. Then, we discuss importance of including captions that contain important vocabulary, people, ideas, and numbers. Sketch notes don’t need to be in complete sentences, so it’s fine to write single words, bullets, or fragments.

Teaching students to create subtopics is a great way to start narrowing the research field. From all-the-random-facts to these-facts-fit-the-subtopics-I-have-chosen, students are to start differentiating between important information and “fun extras”.

The use of subheadings is easily modeled using the table of contents in informational texts. We spend time looking at these texts, noticing what subtopics the author chose to write about, and what types of information he/she included (and didn’t include).

As students choose subtopics, we put each subtopic as a heading on a different page in their writing notebook. Then, research collected for each subtopic is placed on the page specific to the learning. This can be done using bullets or sticky notes. Although expensive, I prefer the sticky-note route. It allows the details to be easily manipulated/moved around and seem less daunting for students who are reluctant writers.

Concept Mapping

Additionally, concept mapping is very similar to creating subtopics. Ultimately, this strategy becomes a little nebulous. Often times I will introduce it before subtopics sometimes after. There is no hard and fast rule. If taught after subtopics, we will create concept maps with ALL the information and then, create subtopics into which to sort the information. If teaching after subtopics, we natural embed subtopics into our mind maps.

The student sample belows shows a general collection of information with some sketch noting. That’s okay! It is a signal to me, as the teacher, we may need more support in structuring our thinking or we may not be focused on a specific research question.

Question & Answer

Hands-down the question/answer strategy is THE most effective for helping students explore specific research questions and avoiding the “All About” book filled with lots of random facts.

To begin this strategy, we read an informational text aloud and identify a sentence or idea in the text that we want to learn more about. We write this sentence or details from the text on a sticky note and stick it at the top of a page in our writing journal. From there, we make a bulleted list of questions from that detail. What do we want to know more about? What would our reader want to know more about?

Now, as we read/listen/write, these become our research questions. This strategy is gold because it means students are driving the inquiry, we are looking at something specific, and the questions will determine which sources we need. Therefore, using multiple information sources become authentic.

We Have the Information…Now What?

Now that we have completed research on several different topics, questions, and/or questions, we are ready to publish and share our learning. The science or social studies unit our learning aligned with determine how the information is shared. Sometimes we use Google Slides, paragraphs , letters, and sometimes we’ll share our ideas in a speech.

Research in 1st and 2nd Grade is a tough task. There will be missteps – not so great mini-lessons, skipping of steps, moving too fast, hard-to-find-research topics – and that’s okay. All of these things help us, as teachers, and students grow. Research in the real-world is not perfect, and it shouldn’t be in our classrooms either.

So, my challenge to you – offer students real opportunities to learn and research without over scaffolding. Be brave in teaching students’ strategies that allow choice, flexibility, and curiosity to reign. You’ve got this, friends.

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April 22, 2024 at 4:51 am

Thank you for providing a useful framework for using sketch notes as an information gathering tool, especially in the early stages of research before developing specific research questions. If you are also feeling free, you can try some online games like a small world cup .

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How I Use Research Tools with My Second Graders

It’s all about age-appropriateness.

PebbleGo is a curricular content hub specifically designed for K-3 students. Your students will love exploring PebbleGo time and time again. Get your free preview!

Research skills are super important, but when you teach second grade hybrid like I do, they can be quite a challenge to teach. It’s difficult to find age-appropriate digital research materials when doing a random search. Most of the available material is far above my students’ reading level and isn’t necessarily kid-friendly. Fortunately, I found a great resource. Check out how I made these animal reports happen using age-appropriate research tools with my second graders:

Setting the Stage

My students are obsessed with animals, so I decided to do in-class animal research projects using PebbleGo, a research tool specifically designed for K-3 students. For our first introduction, I displayed PebbleGo on my interactive whiteboard and modeled how to navigate through the program.

My demonstration included how to: go through each tab of information per topic, utilize the read-aloud audio, enlarge photographs, watch videos, listen to the corresponding animal sounds, and view the range map to see where animals are found in the wild.  Each animal page (except for common pets) has the following information tabs: body, habitat, food, life cycle, and fun facts.

After my mini-lesson, I gave the students 20 minutes to explore the entire animals’ section independently. Their enthusiasm was infectious! Each student had exciting animal facts to share with me every other second.

This student is learning about jellyfish on PebbleGo.

Working Together

The next day, I picked one animal to explore in-depth together. I chose the cardinal since we have seen some lately on campus and around the community. After going through each section together, each student found the cardinal page on their laptop.

All of the content has a read-aloud audio feature, which is especially helpful for my struggling readers . Additionally, all of the text and audio can be translated into Spanish. I have a new student who just arrived from Colombia and does not speak any English, so this has been a wonderful tool to assist her.

The students worked independently to complete the two activity sheets, which I also got from PebbleGo! I love how the “Share What You Know” sheet correlates with the five information tabs on each specific animal. Once my class was finished, we went over both sheets together through the document camera.

This student is researching and reporting on cardinals using PebbleGo.

Independent Practice

Now it was time for my students to do their own research and mini-reports. To shake things up, we had a drawing to determine what animal each student would research. Each student picked one slip out of a hat (after a round of handwashing, of course!), and things took off from there.

This student is filling in his Share What You Know fact sheet about lions.

Each student completed a hard copy of the two activity sheets correlating to his or her assigned animal. Next, I introduced the students to the Read More eBooks section connected to each animal, which caused another wave of excitement! There were tons of books corresponding to the animal project topics.

This student is researching the red panda and reporting her findings on her fact sheet.

Celebrating Success

Everyone shared their findings with the class in recognition of our success. The students were so proud of their reports, which of course had me kvelling.

These are work samples from two different students.

Two more student work samples from the PebbleGo animal report project.

The Takeaway

Our first research project using PebbleGo was a huge success. Even my students who I struggle with daily to complete assignments were highly motivated. This won’t be our last project. Next up: biographies and weather!

Want to try animal reports or another research project with your K-3 students?

Learn More About PebbleGo

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65+ Ideas, Tricks, and Tips for Teaching 2nd Grade

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State Report Research Project Made Easy!

Are you getting ready to do research on one of the fifty U.S. states? This 19 page unit comes with all the templates students need to complete a research project on one of the fifty states. Students can record information they gather, glue images, photos and draw maps on these templates to create an informational state report.

Research organization templates are included to help students create a research plan and keep track of their resources.

Over 1,000 copies sold! Grab your copy today!

State Report Research Project

Nancy Alvarez

Nancy Alvarez is a principal in Texas. She is a speaker, national presenter, and early childhood curriculum creator.

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