2 Engaging fact and opinion activities for first grade writing

Doing fact and opinion activities with first graders can kinda drive me batty. Wanna know why?

Okay. Have you ever noticed how authors just conveniently slide their opinion about topics into a text?

Well, it happens.  A lot.

Like the author will be in the middle of teaching about Abraham Lincoln, say, and they will just throw in that Lincoln was the best president we have ever had.

And it kinda drives me crazy when teaching kids the difference between opinion writing and informative writing! #grrrrrface

But honestly, it usually turns out just fine because my first graders LOVE finding mistakes that professional authors make and feeling smarter than them!

Since we had already learned to listen for facts that support a topic, we were ready to dig a little deeper into what kind of information authors give us with these fact and opinion activities.

So, we spent some time last week during reading with this literacy goal in mind for our first graders:

...reading to determine if the information in a non-fiction text was a fact or opinion.

Fact and Opinion Anchor Charts

First, we charted what facts and opinions are…

fact and opinion anchor chart

Grab a pre-made template for this fact and opinion anchor chart.  Then, just print and chart with your kids!

We are in the middle of our Famous Americans and Inventors unit. And we have been researching each famous person together. As we researched our inventors, we added the information we learned under each side of our chart on our dry erase board (sorry, I forgot to snap a pic!).  This was really helpful for the kids to see how authors use both kinds of information in non-fiction texts!

We followed this same routine all week as we researched other famous Americans and Inventors like Alexander Graham Bell, sound, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Edison.

fact and opinion sorting activity

Then, on Friday, we sorted our facts and opinions on one of our science topics we researched: Sound.  This was the kiddo’s independent activity during reading groups.

fact and opinion activities for sorting

Next, we will be digging deeper into facts to decide if they are important or interesting facts with one of my very favorite literacy read alouds of all time!