Presidential Pets

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Ask students to pretend that, as a newly elected president, they are asked to choose a pet for the White House.
• Explain that to learn more about presidential pets and to provide choices for the new presidents, a reporter, you, will read a website article.
• Project and read the national geographic kids website article Presidential Pets.
• After reading, ask students to show a thumbs up if the article is nonfiction, or a thumbs down if it is fiction. Explain that this is a nonfiction news article, because it is based on fact, and not fiction, or made up. Add that many of the pets are so odd that it seems that they are fictional.

Guided Practice

• Partner up students to take turns in a role play president and interviewer scenario. The interviewer will ask what pet the new president will bring to the White House and the president will select one and give his or her reason for the choice.

Independent working time

• Distribute the Presidential Pets worksheet and give the directions.
• Add that if the student does not find his or her choice of presidential pet on the worksheet, an alternate drawing and reason for the choice may be made on the backside of the paper.