First Grade Researching...Can it be done?

I just spent my day in professional development...I love learning from other educators! We went to a session with Rebecca Harper, who is a writing expert. She was absolutely wonderful and so inspiring. One thing she said that really stuck out to me was, "First grades CAN do...if you have the high expectations for them, then they WILL perform. If not, they won't." How simply is that? So many times we think.. "Oh these kids are little...they can't do that." But, THEY CAN!! This was somewhat my attitude at the beginning of the year when shuffling through the common core standards. It is intimidating to see the words RESEARCH. I was one of the very ones that thought, "They seriously expect first graders to do RESEARCH!!!?" Yes, they do and yes first graders can!

We have been working with informational writing and I felt this would be the perfect time to incorporate in some researching. Each student was able to select an animal. Our awesome media specialist pulled some first grade non-fiction text for my students to use for their research. It was so interesting how well they did this and how much they loved it!! Hearing those sweet voices telling me facts that had learned from the text was awesome. 

After getting our information done, we discussed how to put facts into our own words. I modeled this using chart paper. Have y'all learned that chart paper is my best friend yet?! The final products to these animal informational writings were amazing. There are NO limits in first grade. I've learned to challenge these little minds and they will find success. How do you teach your students how to research?