{"id":1802,"date":"2009-09-20T14:38:06","date_gmt":"2009-09-20T19:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/archives\/1802"},"modified":"2009-09-20T14:38:06","modified_gmt":"2009-09-20T19:38:06","slug":"teaching-earth-science-with-childrens-literature-bringing-the-rain-to-kapiti-plain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/2009\/09\/20\/teaching-earth-science-with-childrens-literature-bringing-the-rain-to-kapiti-plain\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Earth Science with Children’s Literature: Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"61ym82nhbxl.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain<\/a>, written by Verna Aardema<\/a>, is story that tells of an African legend about what makes the sky rain.\u00a0 This story is a long, repetitive, rhyming poem, much like “In the House that Jack Built”.<\/p>\n

A herdsman name Ki-pat stands watching his cows, as well as the other animals of the Serengeti, begin to go hungry as the fields and pastures dried from lack of rain.<\/p>\n

\n

“These are the cows, all hungry and dry,
\nWho mooed for the rain to fall from the sky;
\nTo green-up the grass, all brown and dead,
\nThat needed the rain from the cloud overhead –
\nThe big black cloud, all heavy with rain,
\nThat shadowed the ground on Kapiti Plain.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ki-pat worries about the pastures and animals drying up and becoming ill, and wants to make the rain fall out of the cloud.\u00a0 A feather falls from an eagle soaring above, and gives Ki-pat an idea – he will shoot the cloud to make the rain pour out!<\/p>\n

\n

“This was the shot that pierced the could
\nAnd loosed the rain with thunder LOUD!
\nA shot from the bow, so long and strong,
\nAnd strung with a string, a leather thong;
\nA bow for the arrow Ki-pat put together
\nWith a slender stick and an eagle feather;
\nFrom the eagle who happened to drop a feather,
\nA feather that helped to change the weather.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rain finally falls on Ki-pat’s field, which greens the grass, helping to feed and water his starving animals.<\/p>\n

\n

“So the grass grew green, and the cattle fat!
\nAnd Ki-pat got a wife and a little Ki-pat –
\nWho tends the cows now, and shoots down the rain,
\nWhen black clouds shadow Kapiti Plain.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Curriculum Connections:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0This book will help teach children the relationship of seasonal change and weather patterns to life processes of plants and animals, as well as the importance of the water cycle for the life of living things, as suggested by VA Science SOLs 1.7abc, as well as 3.9c.<\/p>\n

Additional Resources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Teacherlink<\/a> has an extension geography lesson for this book that highlights the different regions and wildlife of Africa, as well as point out that people who live far away from each other can be similar, as well as have big differences in the way they live.<\/p>\n

Scholastic’s<\/a> website provides guided reading questions to help children make predictions and tell their feelings about the story, as well as gives a guide for “choral reading” of the repetitious sections of the poem.<\/p>\n

Kids Econ Posters<\/a> provides an economics lesson plan for this book highlighting the topic of scarcity.<\/p>\n

General Information:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Book<\/strong>:\u00a0 Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain<\/a>
\nAuthor<\/strong>:\u00a0 Verna Aardema<\/a>
\nIllustrator<\/strong>:\u00a0 Beatriz Vidal<\/a>
\nPublisher<\/strong>:\u00a0 Scholastic<\/a>
\nPublication Date<\/strong>:\u00a0 2001
\nPages<\/strong>:\u00a0 32 pages
\nGrade Range<\/strong>:\u00a0 1-3
\nISBN-13<\/strong>: 978-0140546163<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain, written by Verna Aardema, is story that tells of an African legend about what makes the sky rain.\u00a0 This story is a long, repetitive, rhyming poem, much like “In the House that Jack Built”. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4424,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,773],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-earth-science"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}