Do you know how the Earth has changed over millions of years?

Posted on March 4, 2011 by carriegelson

What do we know about how the Earth has changed over time? Do we have the background knowledge (schema) to talk about these changes or do we need to do a lot of new learning? Let’s find out!

The question: How has the Earth changed over millions of years?

The task: take paper and felts and go write down what you know!

So here is what we think we know as of today.

Some definite themes and big discussion about:

“Something came crashing to Earth and killed the dinosaurs!” “Yeah! It was a ball!” “Not a ball! A meteor.” “No, an asteroid!” “Huh?’

Some people had a vague idea that the continents were not the same shape as they are today.

Every piece of land are together

The land was connected.

Spelling was not a priority in this exercise!

We definitely knew that some creatures have roamed the Earth that are not here today.

Other interesting discussion: Is there more water now? Or less? What about trees? Animals? When did people get here exactly? Is there more light now?

So we need some more information! We need a great book!

My son came home from school talking about a great book (you’ve got to love that as a Mom and a teacher!) that his teacher had read to him (thanks Ms. Conklin!) . This is how I came across The Pebble in my Pocket – A History of our Earth written by Meredith Hooper and illustrated by Chris Coady. This is a long book and took several sittings to complete it – especially because we had to stop frequently for great questions and discussion. My students loved this book and I loved reading it to them as they were so passionate with their comments and questions. It is pretty serious business when we go back millions and millions of years!

This book takes us on a 480 million year journey. We follow a piece of rock that formed as a result of a volcano and travelled through time to end up in a little girl’s pocket. On this amazing journey we learn how the earth has changed in many dramatic ways over time.

Great comments and questions I just have to share:

Kevin interrupted a few pages in, after finding out that rocks become smoother as they slide down mountains, travel through rivers, get battered by waves etc.

“Wait! I’m going to infer something! If a rock is bumpy it’s not from many years ago because the smooth ones are from long ago.”

We read about how there were no plants or trees at one point and Jeremiah wondered: “Back then, if you were in space, what would the Earth have looked like, what colours would you see?” (Is this not the most brilliant question?)

Miami was worried. “Ms. Gelson, you told us that trees give oxygen so if there were no trees, how could there be oxygen? Nothing could live!”

Kevin jumped in, “Wait Miami I’ve got something for you! There were little green plants and they could have given oxygen!”

Eddy started thinking as we discussed why the dinosaurs might be extinct. Some people thought a meteor hitting the Earth was the reason. “So if a meteor hit, and smoke didn’t let the sun through, the plants would die and the dinosaurs would die because they had nothing to eat and they would be too cold right?”

And the big, big question we had over and over again. “I know there were cave people but just how did those cave people get there?”

When we finished the book, we did a timeline exercise – sorting when different life existed on Earth. (i.e. 155 mya Small running Dinosaur Compsognathus) Then we grabbed felts and paper again and tried to write down new things we learned.

Now we have a better idea of how the Earth has changed.

Students included many things on their lists, including:

land was formed by volcanoes
fish became land creatures
many ice ages occurred
flowers grew after plants and trees
many creatures are now extinct like mammoths
the same land was sometimes frozen

So much to still learn, but we have a richer understanding thanks to this fantastic book!

The Great Apes

Posted on March 2, 2011 by carriegelson

Apes. Orangutan, Chimp, Bonobo, Gorilla – these great apes are fascinating. They are so like us! At this time in the world we need to protect them to ensure they have places free from being hunted and free to live in peace. What did we learn about these great apes today? What are we still wondering? What do we want to research?

Ape is a visually stunning book! A book to pore over again and again marvelling at the details – both visual and written. Vicky White’s close up portraits and lifelike illustrations fascinated us while Martin Jenkins’ text provided so much new information it was difficult to turn a page without endless questions being tossed around the room.

This was the perfect text to practice questioning with non-fiction text in small groups. First we listened to the story and listed key questions on our individual notepads. Some very fascinating facts that sparked a lot of discussion:

Chimpanzees poke a hole into a termite mound with a long blade of grass and then lick off the termites! Some people thought they were using the grass kind of like a straw. Other people wondered if they shared. Many people thought it would be pretty gross to have bugs crawling around in your mouth!
Orangutans love to eat the smelly durian fruit!
Chimps travel in gangs and hunt down monkeys. “Gangs!?” This seemed very dramatic. “Do they just chase the monkeys or do they actually eat them?” one little horrified voice asked.

We then took our questions to share in a group of four. Each student took turns sharing a question and the group helped decide where to include it on our questioning sheet. Was it a question we found the answer to? Was it a question where we thought we could infer using the schema we already have about animals and the world? Or was it a question where we felt that more research was needed?

Which questions made the lists? A sample below . . .

Questions we had but then found out the answer as we read on:

How long do gorillas live? At least 40 or 50 years.
Where do the apes sleep? In nests on the ground or in trees
What do apes eat? Some eat fruit, some eat termites.
Are any of these apes extinct? No!
How many species of apes are there? Five species in the world – including us!

Questions that we didn’t find the answers to but we can try to infer:

What are the predators of apes? We think humans who hunt them and big cats because they run fast and can catch them.
When the chimps fight with other chimps, do they die? We think they might if they get really hurt. Maybe they could get an infection from a bite or bad scratch.
What kinds of parasites do they have? Maybe fleas because they have fur.

Questions which need more research:

Which of the apes is most aggressive?
How are Apes related to people?
Can a chimp sense its predators?
Can apes swim?
What are the differences between males and females?

It was fantastic to see students so engaged with their questions and talking together to make inferences and discuss new learning.

Thank you to BLG who sent in this book to another primary class a few weeks ago. This book will be a very popular book in our library!

Let’s Do Nothing . . . (but read?)

Posted on February 27, 2011 by carriegelson

Favourite books I found at VPL today. The public library is a perfect place to hide out with one (frozen) child while the other plays soccer (in this snow!!? Only in Vancouver!) What did we find?

Animator Tony Fucile’s first picture book Let’s Do Nothing has a very alluring title. Nothing? Ah, such a comforting idea after a busy, busy week.

Frankie and Sal are two bored boys. What to do? How about nothing? Great idea! They each sit in a chair committed to exactly that – the act of doing nothing. But, how possible is it? I read this to my son who hooted at Frankie’s hopeless attempts at doing nothing as his overactive imagination always caused him to do something. (There’s a part about a tree and a dog with a raised leg . . . that was absolutely hilarious to him) Can’t wait to try this book out on my class. Will they think it is impossible to do nothing? We practice mindful breathing three times a day. Is breathing something or does it count as nothing? This will be an interesting conversation . . .

Tina Matthews is the author and illustrator of Out of the Egg, the Little Red Hen story – reinvented. We still have all of our “Not I” animals, too busy being lazy to help out. But in this story our Little Red Hen not only plants and nurtures a beautiful shade giving tree, she also has a lovely little chick hatched out of a perfect white egg.

Out of the egg hatched a little red chick.

And this little chick has something new to offer the story – a dose of forgiveness. My daughter read the book and announced to me, “I thought this was going to be a what comes around, goes around story, but the little chick didn’t let it be.”

Giora Carmi made a beautiful book – A Circle of Friends – all the more powerful in its simplicity because it is wordless. A little boy shares his snack with a homeless man sleeping on a park bench.

A shared snack for someone who might need it

The man sprinkles crumbs on the bench for the birds nesting in the tree above him. In the end, the little baby bird drops a seed in the window box of the boy. And soon, a beautiful sunflower grows. Each page is sketched in black and white with one highlight of colour. All about the circle of kindness inspired from one gesture. My daughter commented, “Mama, this is also a what comes around, goes around book, but in a nice way.” Absolutely!

Happy Reading!

Simple Books, Little Treasures

Posted on February 20, 2011 by carriegelson

It’s report card writing time: words, words and more words. At the library today I was drawn to books that didn’t contain many (words) at all! These fabulous little finds are all about simplicity – wordless or sparse text. Pages full of ideal illustrations, questions posed and left unanswered and inferences begging to be made. 🙂 South by Patrick McDonnell.

A last fall leaf lands on a lone little bird, asleep. His friends have all left for warmer places. Despair. Mooch, the cat, accompanies him on his journey south through falling snow, falling tears and developing adoration until they happen upon the beautiful sound of birdsong.

Old friends found but reluctant goodbyes to new friends made. South by Patrick McDonnell is a lovely wordless story about being lost and found and having someone sweet enough to help you on your journey to where you need to go.

Aren’t we lucky to have children in our lives (like the little boy in this book in his star ship pyjamas and his important cardboard box) to remind us to appreciate the here and now? Kind of why it is great to be a parent and a teacher. My favourite line from Alison McGhee is the last line of the story: Little boy, you remind me how so much depends on days made of now. This book was inspired by the poem The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams (a poem that also plays a starring role in Love that Dog by Sharon Creech) Little Boy is illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds.

I love books featuring birds, books that ask questions (and inspire more) and books by Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka. This book was made for me!

Little Black Crow where do you go?begins the questioning . . . 27 questions make up this book about a little boy wondering about the little black crow he sees in the sky.

Haven’t you also wondered about those birds flying by? Hey! Birds! Are you never afraid? Do you wonder about the stars you see? Might you ever wonder about someone . . . like me?

Happy Reading!

Stories that came our way today

Posted on February 16, 2011 by carriegelson

Our classroom read aloud mid morning was an information story book to practice asking questions and inferring from our background knowledge.

Written by Vivian French (author of many favourite information story books) and illustrated by Charlotte Voake, Caterpillar Caterpillar is all about a little girl learning about the caterpillar’s development through the help of her patient and knowledgeable grandfather. We realized our background knowledge related to insects has really grown because of all of our research about walking sticks (our classroom pets). We had lots of questions about the caterpillars shedding their skin and wondered if like stick bugs, they ate their skin? Do they have suction cups on their legs to be able to travel on the underside of leaves? Are the butterfly eggs sticky to stay stuck to the leaves? They must be because they don’t fall off in the rain. But then somebody else pointed out that maybe the eggs are only laid on the underside of leaves to protect them. Can caterpillars spray a substance to keep enemies away like some stick bugs can? Great questions and discussion today!

In the afternoon, we walked to Strathcona Library to visit Ms. Hong and have a story time at our public library! What a great way to fit our daily 30 minutes of physical activity into the school day! And . . . what a wonderful story!

Ms. Hong read us Orange Peel’s Pocket written by Rose Lewis and cheerfully illustrated by Grace Zong. Chang Ming goes in search of answers to the question – What is China like? by wandering into shops and businesses where she can learn more about her cultural heritage. Everyone slips something mysterious into her pocket (how fun to guess what each item might be when Ms. Hong read aloud!) – a poem, a peony, a recipe for noodle soup, etc. Now Orange Peel (Chang Ming) can share her heritage with her classmates.

A lovely end to our day. . . When we returned to class, Edwin shared a drum given to him by his grandfather and showed us a rattle carved from a special tree where eagles nested and gifted to him by his uncle. Sharing of his stories and culture – thank you Edwin!

Courage to Fly

Posted on February 14, 2011 by carriegelson

This week I read Troon Harrison’s picture book Courage to Fly to our Reading group. We continue to practice actively using the comprehension strategies we have been taught in Reading Power lessons: making connections, visualizing, asking questions and inferring while we listen to stories. Students loved this beautifully illustrated book (Zhong-Yang Huang is the illustrator) about Meg, an anxious and lonely little girl in a big city in a brand new country.

Meg finds a tiny swallow that was brought down in a snowstorm. She nurses it back to health and then begins to wonder if she should set it free. She is reluctant to do so – but is encouraged to give the bird its chance to fly. Who really finds the courage to fly? By the end of the book, we were convinced that Meg had been transformed by her experience and that after taking a risk to let the bird go free, could find the courage to open up her heart to new friendships.

Some thoughts from the students:

I think New York is not a great place for Meg (Ricky)

Why is Meg so shy? Is she lonely? Is she scared of the snow? (Truman)

I think the old man is also trying to tell Meg to find courage. (Jena)

I think the message of the book is to let things be free (Jenny)

Meg gets the courage to be free! (Josiah)

Birds and children must have been on my mind this week when I took my children to the public library – I found two more books involving a child and a hurt bird that needed to be cared for. So much learning happens from these experiences. Lovely stories that touch on the themes of hope, courage, relationships, perseverance, transformation, freedom . . .

Martha is Gennady Spirin’s story about his own son Ilya who discovered a crow with a broken wing. The veterinarian insisted the bird should be put to sleep as it would never fly. Ilya convinced his parents otherwise and the crow they named Martha made her home with the family. Eventually Martha surprised them all and flew again. Is she the bird that returns the next year and nests in their tree?

Fly, Pigeon, Fly! is coauthored by John Henderson and Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Thomas Docherty. Set in Glasgow, this is the story of a young boy who discovers a half-starved pigeon in a run down warehouse and takes him home to care for him. The pigeon recovers but the boy cannot bear to set him free. The relationships between the boy and the bird and the boy and his Da are gently explored. In a lovely way, as the boy is able to let the pigeon go, his connection to his Da becomes stronger.

The Last Polar Bear

Posted on February 9, 2011 by carriegelson

Tigluk looks out his window and sees a polar bear in the distance. It is Nanuk. She looks straight at him and seems to speak to him “Follow me.” Tigluk and his grandmother paddle out in the ocean searching the ice floes for the bear. They discover, not Nanuk but her cub and Tigluk names him Pilluk (meaning to suvive). “With the melting of the ice, he is the last polar bear,” says Tigluk and cradles the bear in his arms.

This sad story by Jean Craighead George forces us to confront the serious issue of how climate change is affecting the polar bear habitat.

We used this powerful book to practice asking questions as we read and then looked at our questions critically – Did we find an answer in the text? By inferring, can we answer the question? Do we need to do more research? After discussing things, are we left with more questions?

Some of the questions we examined further:

How many bears are in the Arctic? Someone answered this quickly: “It was in the story: Just one left.” Then we talked further and realized we would have to do more research to find out the actual population. Questions were asked about whether polar bears are considered endangered?

If nobody found the polar bear, would he survive? Most people thought that we needed to do more research to answer questions like: How long do they nurse? What exactly do they need to survive? before we could infer because we don’t have enough background knowledge.

Why would the cub be all alone? To answer this question, we needed to use our own thinking and our background knowledge. Some students reminded us about what we had learned about polar bears in the book Winston of Churchill which was that polar bears could drown if the ice floes were too far apart. So we decided that maybe the mother had drowned while hunting for food because the ice was melting and she had too far to swim back to the ice floe where her cub was waiting.

Why did Nanuk choose a boy to look after her cub? For this question, we decided that we should infer. A suggestion was made that maybe Nanuk chose Tigluk because he was young and would have many years to care for the bear and maybe even help change things. Everyone thought that this made a lot of sense

Our questions and thoughts after discussing the book:

If there is only one bear, how will it mate? How will any more polar bears be born?

Is the world really getting too hot?

If the polar bear became used to humans and human food, could it ever go into the wild again?

How will the people in the village survive without polar bears? If other animals in the Arctic are also becoming endangered won’t this be hard on the people in the North who hunt them and use their furs and skins?

So much to wonder and think about from one very special book.

Just . . . How big is the world . . . anyway?

Posted on February 3, 2011 by carriegelson

Britta Teckentrup’s How Big is the World? certainly inspired us to ask that question and many more as we followed little mole on his journey to discover just how big the world is by asking all of the creatures he meets on his important journey to find his answer. From spiders to whales, all of the creatures give him an answer but each one is different.

Some questions we began to wonder as we read this book:

Does everyone have their own thoughts about the world and how big it is? (Jena)

Will the little mole ever find out? (Truman)

Will the mole have another big question after this question? (Lisa)

Does the world ever end? (Sergio)

I wonder if you want the world to end, if you have to go off the world? (Jenny)

Well then how big is space? (Jeremiah)

Litle Mole does have an answer for his Papa when he returns.

“How big is the world?” whispered Papa. “As big as you want it to be,” said Little Mole quietly and he went to sleep.

This made lots of sense to some of us. “That’s because each animal had a different answer!” “It depends on who you ask!” “The animals could only talk about what they knew.” But Catriona wasn’t satisfied. “That isn’t true,” she said shaking her head. “It is a specific size.”

Britta Teckentrup is also the author/illustrator of Grumpy Cat and Big Smelly Bear which are very popular books in our picture book bins.

What did we learn about baby sea otters?

Posted on January 31, 2011 by carriegelson

Our information story book this week was Baby Sea Otter by Betty Tatham. We continued to practice asking questions as we worked our way through the story. What was exciting was how students are beginning to connect their learning from different books to their wondering about new topics. From the questions below you can tell we have been learning about symbiotic relationships, the characteristics of mammals, etc

Betty Tatham’s story delighted and thrilled the students as they learned about how mother otters serve meals on their belly and how they have to protect their pups from diving eagles.

Some interesting questions as we read:

*Do they have any parasites? (Hajhare)

*Do they have gills to breathe underwater? (Kevin)

*Do they migrate? (Ricky)

*What happens if there are no more sea urchins where they live? (Lisa)

*Do otters have symbiotic relationships with other animals? (Jena)

*How do they clean themselves? (Annie)

*How do you know if they are male or female? (Jenny)

What did we learn?

Annie tells us: Sea otters dive underwater to protect their babies from eagles

Jena writes: The Mom ties the pup to a kelp bed when she goes to get food. She uses her chest as a table to feed the baby.

Kevin explains about what they eat: I discovered that they eat crabs, clams, sea urchins and they use stones to crack open the shells.

Ricky tells us: Sea otters are waterproof. They stay waterproof by blowing their fur with warm air.

Sarah Perry’s If inspires

Posted on January 26, 2011 by carriegelson

Our reading group explored the book If by Sarah Perry. This is the classic book to introduce the concept that one simple question can lead us to deeper questions and endless wondering. Each page features an amazing visual with an If phrase such as If music could be held . . . , If mice were hair . . . (a pretty creepy idea!) If toes were teeth. . . (gives a whole new image to wiggly teeth we decided :)) We lingered on each page- shouting out questions as someone else wondered something that made our thinking bigger and our wondering even broader.

Some truly great questions shared in wonder webs (inspired from specific pages in the story).

If leaves were fish . . .

Would we have to rake up fallen fish? (Jena)

Would there be fish flying around on a windy day? (Catriona)

Would they be smelly? (Lisa)

Will they change colour? (Kevin)

Would they still use chlorophyll? (Alyson)

Then what would the caterpillars eat? (Ricky)

Can the fish breathe? (Annie)

If hummingbirds told secrets . . .

Would they tell secrets to their predators? Can the animals understand? Would the ears get poked? (Gary)

How would it say the same language as me? wondered Truman. He then added little drawings of people asking: “What did you say?” “What does it mean?” “What would it be?”

A book to pick up again and again. Let the wondering begin!