One of the concepts I was surprised some of my students struggled with last year was fact and opinion. I realized we needed a concrete way to experience and discuss it.
I found some cool pictures, printed them and glued them onto pieces of butcher paper. I placed them around the room, handed out the ever-so-popular Mr. Sketch markers, and let my students work together to write sentences that were facts and sentences that were opinions. They labeled them with an F or O for fact or opinion if they thought they could.
Here are some of the posters after they were finished:
We had some really great discussions that led to them realizing words that turned facts into opinions. For example, on the picture of the wolves, a student wrote that they had long tongues as a fact. They came to realize that a giraffe might not consider that a long tongue.
And FYI, one of my favorite places to get photos (for classroom use only) is from Guardian Eyewitness. They have an app with some very cool pictures that are great conversation starters.
