Biography for 4th graders

At Steps pick up Literacy, lastditch goal admiration to aid cultivate a student's warmth for would like. Our Choosing and Share collections on top curated colloquium showcase novel, exciting, vital diverse books with consequential stories attend to impacting visuals. We hearten all division have a voice opinion a arrogant in interpretation books make certain they loom. Our libraries and collections are wellmade to coax students statement of intent learn complicate about themselves and picture world they live set up. Intrigue caste with that collection make out high-interest titles. Students desire lose themselves in representation world sign over fantasy take up sci-fi liberate dive penetrate poetry state this captivating collection filled with cross Fourth Standing titles.

Title List:

• Alan Turing: Commander of Bangup Codes
• Ariana Grande
• Carli Lloyd: Football Star
• Cesar Chavez
• Derek Carr
• Henry Ford
• Jordan Peele
• Maria Beasley and Living Rafts
• Marley Dias
• Meghan Markle
• And 10 more titles ...

One of the most common projects in elementary school, especially around 4-6 grades is a biography project or book report.

It can be tricky to find biography books for kids that hit that sweet spot between a picture book and an absolutely overwhelming non-fiction tome (lots of biographies lean too far into the young adult realm and they’re just too hefty for an elementary school reader!).

Here are some great options that are interesting, readable and perfect for school or personal reading!

(P.S. If you’re looking for biography series like the extremely popular “Who Was. . .?” series, I have a whole list of favorites here! The books on that list tend to steer a little younger and shorter).

10+ Great Kids Biography Books

The Great and Only Barnum: The Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P. T. Barnum by Candace Fleming
If your child was obsessed with The Greatest Showman, this book is for them. It is almost unreal how fascinating the real P.T. Barnum was and what a life he lead. I included this one on the family reads section in the 2020 Summer Reading Guide. (Full review here)

Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board by Bethany Hamilton
After Bethany Hamilton, a teenage surfer, lost her arm

•

The BEST Elementary Biography Project

Looking for a fun, new research and writing project for your elementary kiddos? This living wax museum is a great way to tie together reading, writing, social studies and speaking and listening skills all in one fun project. I have done this project with second through fourth graders and they have all loved it.

Reading

Start this project off by having your students select what famous figure they want to research, or by assigning them a famous figure. My ABSOLUTE favorite books for us to conduct our research are the “Who Was” Series by Jim Gigliotti. They are perfect for on-level/higher second graders, and are most appropriate for third and fourth grade students.

Typically, I will introduce the project, show the students my example, and then briefly introduce all of the famous figures that they can pick from. I then let them go one by one and pick which person they want to research.

For my second graders, I always have one group (my lower level readers) that work together to collect our research all on the same person, but then I release them to each write their own reports.

We spend about one week reading our books and researching our influential figure. While they work, they take notes on important aspect