{"id":250,"date":"2008-09-16T09:03:47","date_gmt":"2008-09-16T14:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/archives\/250"},"modified":"2008-09-16T09:03:47","modified_gmt":"2008-09-16T14:03:47","slug":"teaching-life-science-with-childrens-literature-cactus-hotel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/2008\/09\/16\/teaching-life-science-with-childrens-literature-cactus-hotel\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Life Science with Children’s Literature: Cactus Hotel"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Expanding students’ knowledge from their own environment to the various other environments of the country and the world can often be a challenge.\u00a0 Students are often unaware of the different characteristics and species that compose\u00a0other habitats.\u00a0 Brenda Z. Guiberson’s book Cactus Hotel<\/a>, illustrated by Megan Lloyd, details the life cycle of a cactus and the characteristics and species that compose a desert habitat.<\/p>\n

The gradual progression, spanning from the unintentional planting of a fruit seed by an animal to the\u00a0 use of a two-hundred and fifty year old decaying cactus by animals\u00a0for protection, emphasizes the multiple stages and adaptations that\u00a0occur throughout the plant’s life-cycle.\u00a0 With each\u00a0page Guiberson introduces\u00a0the reader to a new step\u00a0in the life cycle of the plant.\u00a0\u00a0This organization helps to demonstrate\u00a0to\u00a0students the extensive\u00a0time\u00a0frame it\u00a0takes for plant growth in addition to the adaptations the plant and other species must make\u00a0in the\u00a0desert\u00a0environment.<\/p>\n

Guiberson and Lloyd\u00a0demonstrate in their book\u00a0the interdependence among a habitat by showing how the cactus is not just a component of the environment\u00a0but it also houses many species in its “hotel” throughout\u00a0its life cycle.\u00a0 This connection to a hotel stay, along with the vocabulary used, allows students to comprehend what a cactus or other organism provides to the overall habitat.<\/p>\n

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Everybody wants to live in the cactus hotel.\u00a0 Birds lay eggs and pack rats raise their young. Even insects and bats live there. When one animal moves out, another moves\u00a0in. And every spring they come for a special treat of nectar and juicy red fruit.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This\u00a0book\u00a0will help familiarize students with a particular\u00a0environment\u00a0that they may be unfamiliar to, but all students will benefit from the additional\u00a0connections that Cactus\u00a0Hotel <\/em>provides through explaining in detail and with examples how all species and organisms\u00a0depend on one\u00a0another in an environment.<\/p>\n

Curriculum Connections<\/strong>
\nGuiberson and Lloyd’s book is great for a wide range of children from first grade through fourth grade.\u00a0 This book gives details that could be further explored in the upper elementary grades with a study of adaptations, life-cycles (In Virginia 4.5) and specific dry-land environments (3.6d).\u00a0 When used in first and second grade classrooms Cactus Hotel <\/em>correlates to the standards relating to the life needs of plants and animals (1.4, 1.5) and the interdependence among these needs (2.5).<\/p>\n

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