Open Wide, Look Inside

Salmon Creek, written by Annette LeBox and illustrated by Karen Reczuch, is an engaging story about the life cycle of a salmon.

Salmon Creek is the story of Sumi, a coho salmon.  Sumi’s journey of life starts in the creek bed where she is hatched.  It takes her through streams, rivers, the ocean, and her return to the creek bed where the journey began.  Sumi’s journey ends as she spawns eggs of her own.  The illustrations in this book are colorful, and help to draw the reader into the story.

Curriculum Connections:  Salmon Creek is an excellent book for highlighting the series of orderly changes in the life of a coho salmon.  It also references habitat, spawning, and their homeward migration.  SOL 2.4

Additional Resources

• This National Geographic site has a great deal of information and resources, including a lesson plan, handouts, and a slide show.
• A short video clip shows the life-cycle of a salmon. run time: 3.25 minutes
• This website lists additional books that may complement this unit.  The bottom of the page offers links that provide a vocabulary word bank and an interactive fish facts page that is geared towards independent use by your students.

Book:  Salmon Creek
Author:  Annette LeBox
Illustrator:  Karen Reczuch
Publisher:  Groundwood Books/Douglas & McIntyre
Publication Date:  2005
Pages:  32
Grade Range:  k-3
ISBN:  9780888996442 and 0-88899-458-3

The Wolves Are Back: written by Jean Craighead George, illustrated by Wendell Minor

In 1926, it was ordered that all wolves living in Yellowstone National Park be killed.  This resulted in the wolf population disappearing and the rest of the animal and plant populations in the park being thrown off balance.  In 1995, ten adult wolves were put into Yellowstone in the hopes of restoring the natural balance of nature in the park.  Jean Craighead George tells the story of these wolves from the perspective of a wolf pup and his father.  Not only does the book describe the lifestyle of the wolves, but The Wolves Are Back does a great job describing the ways that the loss of one animal population effected the whole animal and plant system in Yellowstone National Park.

“The wolf pup heard a flycatcher call.  The Lamar Valley had not heard this flycatcher while the bison were there.  Bison break and trample young trees to keep back the forest so there will be grass.  Now the wolves hunted the bison and drove them back from the river.  Without the bison, the aspens grew.  With the trees restored, there were limbs for the flycatcher to perch on.  They sat there and sang.  The wolves were back.”

Curriculum Connections:
The Wolves Are Back is a great story to read with students when discussing animals and their habitats, life cycles, plants and animals and their dependence on each other in an ecosystem, food webs, the ways in which habitats change, predators and prey, and population and community.  This book could be tied in to lessons dealing with the Virginia Science Standards of Learning 2.5, 3.5, 3.6, and 4.5.

Additional Resources:
Jean Craighead George’s Website: This site includes a biography of Jean Craighead George, a complete list of her works, videos of Ms. George as well as sound recordings of animals, tips for writing your own story, and a short Question and Answer section.

Food Web Lesson Plan: This lesson plan includes information about food webs and chains and has a section discussing what happens when there is an imbalance in an animal population (as discussed in The Wolves Are Back).  A worksheet and answer key are also included.

Food Web Game: Students can choose between a meadow, arctic, or pond food web and must put plants and animals in the correct order to make the food web flow.

Wolf Habitat Lesson Plan: The activity in this lesson plan is geared towards encouraging students to define a habitat, describe what animals need in order to survive, and to discuss factors that may cause a population of animals to increase or decrease.  This plan includes a very physical and engaging activity and integrates the use of graphs.

General Information:
Book: The Wolves Are Back
Author: Jean Craighead George
Illustrator: Wendell Minor
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Publication Date: April 2008
Pages: 32
Grade Range: 2-6
ISBN-10: 0525479473
ISBN-13: 978-0525479475

What are Food Chains and Webs, written by Bobbie Kalman and Jacqueline Langile, is a kid friendly book that explores food chains using illustrations and actual photographs from the wild.

The book begins by defining what a “food chain” is and what makes up an energy pyramid. From there the book dives into each category of the pyramid explaining what a producer is, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, and decomposers. The back of the book focuses on the second topic “food webs”. It explores what a forest wood web would look like along with coral reef, arctic, and savannah. The conclusion of the book gives teachers ideas for games that children can play in the classroom to help them understand what a food chain is and how it works.

Curriculum Connections

What are Food Chains and Webs? could be used as an introduction tool for learning about food chains. This book can be used for SOL:

3.5 a,b,c– investigate and understand the organisms in aquatic and terrestrial food chains. Key concepts include: producers, consumers, decomposers, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, predator, and prey.

Additional Resources

• Food Chains and Webs, Whats for dinner?: Provides teachers with background information on food chains and webs. There are also ready-made printable worksheets that include: completing the food chain, read and response, multiple choice questions, and vocabulary matching.
• Biology Corner: A worksheet where students identify animals as producers, herbivores, etc and they also get to create their own food web.
• Food Chain Flash cards: This site provides you with printable flashcards for animals in the categories of carnivores, herbivores, omnivores, insectivores, predators, scavengers, cleaners, parasites, and filter feeders.

Book: What are Food Chains and Webs?
Author: Bobbie Kalman and Jacqueline Langile
Illustrator: Barbara Bedell
Publisher: Crabtree Publishing Company
Publication Date: May 1998
Pages: 32 pages
Grade Range: 3-5
ISBN: 978-0865058767

How a Seed Grows, written by Helene J. Jordan and illustrated by Loretta Krupinski begins by explaining the simple concept of what a seed is and what seeds can grow into.  The book explains that some seeds grow very slowly like an oak tree seed and some seeds grow fast like a bean seed.  Next, the book conducts an experiment with twelve bean seeds which are grown in eggshells.  This experiment can easily be done in the classroom.  The experiment emphasizes seeds need soil, sun, water and a place to grow.  The purpose of the experiment is for students to dig up one seed on certain days to see what has developed.  Students should be amazed on day six to see the root system growing and on day eight root hairs growing.  After a number of days, shoots will push through the soil, then the leaves will appear.  Krupinski illustrates each stage in the bean seed’s life so that the student will know what their seed should look like.  This experiment offers young children the real life experience of watching a small seed grow into a real plant.

Curriculum Connections

This book can be used as an introduction in kindergarten and first grade to study a plant’s life cycle and things that living plants need in order to grow.  In Virginia, this book applies to SOL K.6a & b – living things change as they grow and they need food, water, and air to survive; plants and animals live and die “go through a life cycle” as well as 1.4a – plants need “food, air, water, light, and a place to grow”. 

Additional Resources

How a Seed Grows – Little Book is a printable mini-book that students can color and put together.
How a Seed Grows is an adorable Sesame Street Live Video demonstrating how a seed grows
Inside A Seed– a lesson plan designed to give students an inside look to discover the beginning of a plant.
Book: How A Seed Grows
Author: Helene J Jordan
Illustrator: Loretta Krupinski
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication Date: 1992
Pages: 32 pages
Grade Range: kg-2
ISBN: 978-006441079

Earth, Fire, Water, Air by Mary Hoffman and Jane Ray is a children’s story designed to tell the tales of the four elements of life through mythical pictures and a varitey of examples of each element.  In the story, Hoffman personifies Earth as a sort of mother to all human beings and animals.  Fire is displayed in the book as a sort of feared phenomenom as well as a symbolic tool for human customs. Hoffman explains how vital water is to human beings as well as the creatures of the sea while again, portraying water in some mythilogical customs.  At the end of the story, air is coupled with the ideas of wheather, birds,  constellations and the ozone layer.  Overall, Hoffman writes about an overwhelming amount of information with whimsical illustrations to keep the reader engulfed in the story.

Excerpts:

• “All the food that people eat either grows from the soil or comes from animals, which themselves rely on the earth to provide their food.” (pg. 15)

• “When fire is out of control, it can be the most terrifying of the four elements.  Forest fires that rage wildly leave nothing in their path.” (pg. 32)

• “Human beings are made up of nearly three- quarters water.  Earth, our planet, has twice as much water as land.” (pg. 46)

• “Butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies, and ladybugs all live a very short life compared with people, and they spend most of it on wing.” (pg. 69)

Curriculum Connections:

Earth, Fire, Water, Air is a great story to grab student’s attention and really get them thinking about all the aspects of science.  This book covers a vast area of science information such as people, animals, and the environment.  At the end of each element section there is a page that focuses on conservation of that element and environmental awareness of the future.  This story fullfils the Virginia SOL 2.4 for the second grade in which students understand that plants and animals undergo a series of orderly changes in their life cycles.  Also, Virginia SOL 3.4 for the third grade in which students investigate the behavioral and physical adaptations that allow animals to respond to life needs.

Additional Resources:

• This short lesson from Teacher’s World allows students to use fun materials, to be creative and to follow the adaptations of animals and how their adaptations help them survive.

• This task provides students with instructions on how to create their own terrarium where they can grow plants, moss, and other vegetation.

• This lesson on the Water Cycle provides students with the opportunity to observe what happens to water sealed in a container for a period of time and what steps of the water cycle are involved.

General Information:

Book: Earth, Fire, Water, Air
Author: Mary Hoffman
Illustrator: Jane Ray
Publisher: Penguin Group Inc.
Publication Date: September 1995
Pages: 76
Grade Range: 2nd- 6th
ISBN: 9780525454205

Who Eats What written by Patricia Lauber and illustrated by Holly Keller explores the intriguing world of the food chain.  This simple text explains  the intricacies of the food chain.  Who Eats What reinforces the understanding that all parts of the food chain are necessary to the success of the overall cycle.  The illustrations in Who Eats What clearly depict how “small fish are eaten by bigger fish, which are eaten by still bigger fish, which are eaten by even bigger fish.”  (pg. 23)   The book explores and explains why “food chains are found wherever life is found” by creating food webs in the sea, on land, and in the air.  (pg. 25)  The informative text as well as the colorful and exciting pictures make this a great book use when teaching about life processes and living systems.

Here are a few excerpts from the book.

• “All food chains begin with green plants.  Green plants are the only living things that can make their own food.” (pg. 12)
• “Most animals are part of several food chains.” (pg. 17)
• “A change in one link is felt up and down that chain.  It is felt through the whole web.” (pg. 32)

Curriculum Connections:
Who Eats What is a simple text with wonderful illustrations for children in  kindergarten and first grade to learn about the interdependent web of the food chain. For kindergarten students, this book will allow students to trace the entire food chain for one specific plant or animal.  Furthermore, Who Eats What demonstrates that living things change as they grow, and they need food, water and air to survive and that plants and animals live and die. (VA SOL K.6)  For first grade, Who Eats What is the perfect book to explain that plants have life needs and functional parts. (VA SOL 1.4)  

Additional Resources

• This Enhanced Learning website has great basic information for teachers on trophic levels as well the grassland biome, the pond biome, and the ocean biome.  The website also offers 14 different types of worksheets that can be used as visual aids and well as assignments to  test the student’s overall mastery of the subject matter.
• This Plant Activity Worksheet allows students to identify different parts of a plant and explain the function of those parts.  (A great teaching tool for VA SOL 1.4!)
• This Science Teaching Idea Website offers over 50 resources for teaching life science to students in elementary grades.

Book: Who Eats What
Author: Patricia Lauber
Illustrator: Holly Keller
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: December 1994
Pages: 32 Pages
Grade Range: Kindergarten and First Grade
ISBN: 978-0064451307

Bear Snores On, written by Karma Wilson and illustrated by Jane Chapman, is an adorable story about a big brown bear hibernating through the winter. As he sleeps, a tiny mouse “creep-crawls”, a hare “hops”, a badger “scuttles”, and several other animals enter the cave, but the bear continues to “snore on.” He finally awakes in sadness as he realized that he has missed the party; however, now that winter is over they have all of spring, summer, and fall to enjoy each other’s company.

Curriculum Connections
This would be a great book for introducing the concept of hibernation. It corresponds with the Virginia Science SOL 3.4 focusing on the behavioral and physical adaptations that allow animals to respond to life needs.

Additional Resources

• This powerpoint is a great source for first introducing hibernation. It can be used to encourage dialogue about what hibernation is, which animals hibernate, how they prepare for hibernation, and why it is an essential life process.
• This lesson plan combines objectives of both English and Science. While asking students to both read and write the concepts of hibernation are introduced. It also includes several hands on crafts and activities to reinforce the learned material.
• This website features several songs that sum up the basic concepts of hibernation as well as links to other websites for more hibernation themed activities.

Book: Bear Snores On
Author: Karma Wilson
Illustrator: Jane Chapman
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Publication Date: 2002
Pages: 40
Grade Range: K-3
ISBN: 0689831870