Time For Spring Guide Book
Time For Spring Guide Book
Part 1:
English Language Arts
Main Idea Students will be able to state the main idea of the poem verbally or in writing. They will be able to summarize what the poem is mainly about. What you could say to the students: Remember that the main idea is what the story or poem is mostly about. It is what the author is trying to tell us or teach us with his writing and it can usually be summed up in one sentence. What is the main idea of the poem, what is it telling us? What is the poem mostly about? Things we can do in the spring, changes that happen in the spring. Supporting Details Students will be able to identify the supporting details of the main idea verbally and gesturally by pointing to various lines of the poem. What details support the main idea? What are some of the changes that happen in the spring? Snow melts, trees bud, flowers bloom, birds come back and sing, animals wake up, animal babies are born, nature gets greener, air feels warmer, we can play more outside. Draw a spring picture that shows at least two of the supporting details. Characterization Students will be able to identify character traits verbally by using text clues in the poem. What you could say: Characterization is a method of finding out about a character by looking at all types of clues in the dialogue, setting, and supporting text. We can make inferences or assumptions about the character by looking at these clues. In this poem, we can make decisions about the character that is narrating, or talking, by looking closely at what the character is saying. The character here is using the words, I, me, and my which means there is a first person narration; the character is talking about himself/herself. What do we know about the character? How old do you think he/she is? Is he/she a child or a grown-up? How can you tell? He/she is a child. Evidence from the poem: he/she jumps in the mud, plays outside, hunts for eggs, visits a farm to see the animals. Yes, the character is definitely a child, probably about your age, old enough to play and talk about all of the things he/she likes about the season. Do we know if the character is a boy or girl? No. The poem makes us think about the things we like to do or the things that may happen to us when the season changes. How many of the girls like doing the same things as the character in the story? How many of the boys? Why do you think the author wrote it so that the character could be a boy or a girl? So that both boys and girls could relate to the poem. Does the character like the Spring? How can you tell?
Yes, there is excitement, exclamation points used for playing outside and hunting for eggs. Also, at the end, he/she says Yes! What region does the character live? How do you know? (These questions may need to be revisited in the geography section of the guidebook if children have difficulty. The basic point is that the character has to live in a temperate area where there is a spring season with birds that come back from migration, and trees that bud again. That would exclude tropical and polar zones. There is a geography lesson in Chapter 13 and a map you can refer to on page 56 of the Notebook unit. Youre going to draw a picture of what you think the character of the poem looks like. Think of one thing that you liked that the character in the poem liked or did. Draw the character and yourself doing that activity together in your picture. Remember to add details to your drawing. Imagery Students will be able to identify the imagery words used in the poem verbally, or in writing by circling/ highlighting these words. Students will be able to apply the imagery words from a line of the poem to a picture by illustrating it. What you could say: Imagery words are words used in text that really help the reader to draw a picture in his/her mind. They are details that help the story come to life. Good authors do not need illustrations or photographs to accompany their text if they can tell the words in the right way to help you draw your own imaginary pictures. Using imagery helps readers form a better understanding of what they are reading. Assign every student one line of the poem to illustrate. Have them write the line of the poem and draw a detailed picture to go with this line. They should then share their pictures and discuss how the imagery words helped them. If you have a Document Camera or Viewer, you can show or scan each illustration to the Smart Board to look at each one as a class. These pictures could then be put together to make a class quilt or bound book. Later, when you read the poem again in the book/notebook lesson, compare the photography to this class book. How is the class book similar to the poem in the unit? How is it different? Find/circle/highlight the sensory words used in the poem as a class or as a partner activity. Use a different color highlighter for the different senses. You can discuss each one at a time or altogether. You may want to use a large T-chart, page 48. For right now, fill in one side with the words that come from the poem. Later, the students can add some of their own words for other things they could see, feel, hear, smell, or taste in the spring. This brainstorm will be an organizer for a follow-up activity, creating sensory books for spring. Students will write and illustrate their own sentences that show how spring can stimulate each of their five senses. This can be done in flip book or other creative format. What is the character seeing in the spring? Snow melting, trees budding, flowers blooming, birds in the trees, animal babies, GREEN! Touching/feeling? The warm air on his/her skin, lightweight jackets, flowers and soil or eggs in their hands.
Hearing? Rain, Shovels digging, Birds singing, bees buzzing Smelling? Flowers, Animals at the farm Tasting? "Although it is not directly written in the poem about tasting different foods, what can you begin to taste again in the spring that may be different from the winter?" BBQ food, ice cream from the ice cream man. Text Based Questions Students will be able to show comprehension of the text by answering text based questions and using the text as evidence. Be sure students go back into the poem to find these answers. Always ask, How do you know? Where did you find that answer? (These questions are purposely written in a random order.) What is growing in the poem? What does the narrator do to celebrate Easter? Where do the flowers bloom? What kinds of clothing are mentioned in the poem? What does the narrator listen to in the spring? "What is another word for spring?" Inference Questions Students will be able to show comprehension of the poem by answering inference questions verbally or in writing. Inference questions, unlike text based questions require students to think deeper and more critically about the text. They may have to use a combination of prior knowledge, analysis of how specific words are used, and synthesis of clues and evidence from the poem. The answers will not be right there within the text. Instead, children will derive the answers through a sequence of steps. This is one of the main objectives of common core; to encourage and create opportunity for deeper analysis and thinking. What season ends before spring begins? Think about what the narrator is saying good-bye to." Winter is ending, he/she is saying so long to the ice and snow. Why is a lightweight jacket all you need? What else can we put away besides sweaters?" The weather is getting warmer, we do not have to wear heavy layers or coats. We can also put away gloves, hats, and scarves. Why does the author have to clear room in the garden?"
Over the winter, the garden areas may have dried leaves, dead grass, weeds, and/or sticks. These all need to be cleared away to get ready for planting. Does this poem mainly talk about things that happen inside or outside? Why do you think the author decided to write it this way? Outside. Because talking about a season should include all the things that are changing around us and most of those changes are happening outside, with the plants, animals, and weather.
Part 2: Science
Chapter 5: Earth's Tilt
Objective: Students will be able to visualize the earth's tilt to the sun in seasonal positions and match up key descriptions in an infographic of the earth's revolution. Although the concept of the earth's revolution around the sun may be more challenging and can be more appropriate for older students, showing visually what the earth looks like as the seasons change is very intriguing for younger children. It is a great idea to have a visual model as well as a physical model of this to help them understand it better. Many young children wonder,
"Why is is SO hot in the summer?" or "Why is it SO cold in the winter?" And as we talk about the earth, or more specifically, the northern hemisphere warming up in spring, a model of the earth and the sun can begin to teach this concept. To make a model of the earth, you can use an actual globe, a small ball, or even a paper mache model. It is best to put some kind of stick through it to show an axis. For an example, you may want to paint a small, infant size ball and put a BBQ skewer through it or attach straws to either end. Once you have an additional, bigger ball shape to use for the sun, you can show the revolution of the earth around the sun during the course of the year. You can even have 4 different students come up and stand with labels for each season so that it is easier to pinpoint when the tilt changes. The earth's tilt is mentioned by the Voki on page 26. On the linked page 36, take some time to look at the visual model. If you took the time to use a physical model, this picture will make more sense to your students and will need less description or explanation. If you did not, be sure to look at this picture with the class and describe the positions with simple terms. Answer any questions the students may have. As the picture shows, the northern hemisphere tilts away from the sun in winter, and towards the sun in summer. During each equinox, the tilt stays constant and both hemispheres have about the same strength from the sun. If your students are ready for further study, you can ask them to think and infer about the Southern Hemisphere. "If the Northern Hemisphere is facing away from the sun in winter, where is the southern hemisphere facing?" You can discuss how each hemisphere has opposite seasons. For the follow-up activity, students can actually match up the circles with the correct times of the year simply by looking at key words. "The Northern Hemisphere feels cold and feels hot," will allow the students to match up winter and summer. "Warming up and cooling down will be key words to help them determine what happens between. You can say, "When does it warm up, after summer or after winter?" Although this idea of earth's tilt may be a new one, they can think critically and apply what they already know about the seasons to the infographic.
the course of the spring. This will allow them to identify a temperature range for the spring in a very visual way. First, discuss and review the types of weather that can occur (any time of year), keeping it simple: snowy, rainy, windy, sunny, and cloudy. You can say: "During what season is it snowy? Do you know why?" Discuss that the snow comes down instead of rain when the temperature is very cold. "Will we see snow in the spring? We can, in early spring, but as the season progresses, it shouldn't. This is because the temperatures are higher in the spring, and the water will come down as rain. "We can have many rainy days in the spring. Is that a good thing? Why or why not?" Then discuss how important the rain can be for the plants, grass, and trees that need to begin to grow again. Also discuss the wind. Perhaps a picture of a kite, often found on March calendar labels, can remind them that the weather can be very windy. Of course, it can be windy any time of year. But we may be able to take advantage of a windy day in the spring (since the weather is warmer,) and go outside and fly a kite and enjoy the day. In addition, the weather can be sunny or cloudy. You may want to discuss the proverb: "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb." In addition to making lions and lambs on paper plates as a craft, (in younger classes), you can also talk about the weather each day of March and decide as a class whether it is a lion kind of day or a lamb kind of day. You may want to add a little lion icon or a lamb icon on each day of the calendar. Make a T-chart comparing what each type of day may look like: Lion being chilly, windy, rainy and lamb being warm, sunny, and calm. Temperatures may range from about 35-40 degrees all the way to 75-80 degrees. As said before, the actual temperature of the day is much more of a concern to adults in the morning than to children. Parents need to know what kind of jacket to put on their kids as the weather warms up. But this idea can begin to be passed down to the students. If they are asked to track the temperature in addition to the weather, they can begin to comprehend how the temperature feels to them outside. They can begin to differentiate a 50 degree day from a 70 degree day. Also, it is important to share with them how spring weather begins chilly in the morning and warms up over the course of the day so they can better understand why they may need a jacket in the morning but that they may have it in their backpacks at the end of the school day. It would be good to show a simple thermometer with different colors as you see on page 50; Blue, Cold (10-40), Green, Cool (40-55), Yellow, Warm, (55-75), and Red, Hot (75-100). This is done because colors mean more to the children, with blue typically having a feeling of cold, and yellow and red having a feeling of warmth. Write the temperature down each day on a weekly chart and then record the high temperature for the week (on page 51) to plot on a line graph, page 50 (to be analyzed further later.) Once a color zone is identified for that day's or week's temperature, ask the children to reflect on the types of clothes they wore for that weather. Have them also make predictions of what they may need to wear for the next day's temperature, etc.
Chapter 9: Migration
Objective: Students will be able to define migration and identify why some birds migrate and why some do not. (* Be sure students have filled out what they already know and want to know on the KWL chart about birds on page 53. *)
Speaking of birds, migration is a great animal adaptation that birds have as well. On page 16 of the unit, students are told a bit about migration from the Voki character. The definition is also there to pull out and discuss. Here it is great to talk about what migration means and why animals do it. In this case, "many birds eat worms and insects and these things are not active during the winter. Therefore, they will migrate to warmer weather areas further south so they can still find these food sources in the winter months. Birds that eat insects are called insectivores. The worms and insects hatch again in the early spring which brings the birds back to their nesting areas." "Not all birds eat birdseed. So putting out birdseed in a feeder during the winter will not necessarily keep the birds in your yard. But some birds will not migrate if they can find enough winter berries and seed to keep them around." The cardinal is a perfect example and is very often why cardinals are seen on Christmas cards and winter decorations. It is a classic winter bird, very visible amongst the snow or in a bare tree with its bright red feathers. You may want to show the students some December holiday cards or additional pictures of cardinals in the snow with berries. "Has this cardinal migrated? How can you tell?" Another bird that does not migrate is the American Robin. You may find the robins on your lawn as soon as a long snow has melted, immediately looking for whatever they can find in the lawn that was hidden under the snow. Also, you can ask: "What about the birds that do stay in winter Why don't we see them that often? Where do you think they go?" Have students think about this and try to come to a conclusion. You can say any or all of the following to guide them to the answer; "Birds that do stay around in winter are not always out and we may not notice them. That is because they are often hiding in a sheltered pine tree or shrub to help protect them from the cold. Also, we do not notice them as much because we do not hear them as distinctly as we can in the spring. Although they do chirp, they are not using bird songs or calls during the winter as much because it is not mating season." "What did you learn about birds?" Now you can go back and fill in the remaining part of the KWL chart on page 53, making children accountable for what they learned about birds.
Have children speculate, think about what they know already and apply it, or draw conclusions. "The reason these animals hibernate is because their food is in very short supply or is very hard to find during the winter." "Think about it. What kind of food would be hard to find during the winter?" Plants! Many of the animals that hibernate eat plants, berries, seeds, and fruit which are all very hard to find during the winter months. Also some of these animals eat smaller animals like mice and chipmunks. Problem is, the mice and chipmunks are also hibernating so they are not around either! Not only do animals need to find a shelter to hibernate in all winter, they need to eat a lot of food to build up a store of fat in their bodies that they can live off of. The deep sleep of hibernation makes the body systems of an animal slow down. They do not burn excess energy moving around, and therefore do not get hungry or need extra food. When the fat store runs out, animals have an instinct to wake up from hibernation. Students learn more about the groundhog on page 20. Here are some other interesting facts about the groundhog you can share with them: The Groundhog wakes up early because it goes to sleep much earlier, in early fall. Although the famous groundhogs are actually pulled out of their holes so that there is a news report on February 2nd, many groundhogs wake up on their own and wander out and about in early February because they've already been asleep for almost 5 months! Their hibernation is also called torpor. This means they only partially hibernate, and are not in as deep a sleep as other hibernators. They can wake up, move around, and go back to sleep. (Students learn more about torpor and other torpor animals like bears and raccoons on page 29.) "Groundhogs eat clovers, weeds, and grass (in addition to fruits). Sometimes the groundhog wakes up and stays awake until a true spring arrives. What do you think would make the groundhog stay awake?" If the ground is not covered in snow, they will have food to eat. "What do you think about Groundhog's Day? Can a groundhog predict if spring will come early? There are 6 more weeks of winter anyway after Groundhog's Day, but if a groundhog decides to stay awake, he may feel like it is warm enough, with enough food supply to stay awake. It really doesnt have anything to do with shadows at all! But it also is not a tell tale sign of spring." Students sort animals that hibernate from ones that do not hibernate on page 30. All the animals that are on the hibernate side were mentioned at some point in the unit. Melony, our Voki Avatar has a list of hibernators in her video. Be sure to listen and perhaps, jot them down.
Part 4: Math
Also, in the weather and temperature chapter, it was discussed to get the daily temperature and record it for the week on page 50. After the weeks chart is filled in, have students find the highest temperature for the week. That temperature should be recorded for week 1 on the line graph on page 51. Then, erase the weekly chart and start over recording temperatures for the following week. Record that weeks high temperature as week 2, and so on. Have students help you plot the points for the week. At the end of a certain amount of weeks, (up to 10), the points need to be connected together to form a line graph. The points should go up and down a bit but for the most part show a steady climb, as you would predict the spring temperatures to get warmer over time, as we approach the summer. You can even have your students make this prediction themselves and then test out your theory. What week was the highest temperature? The lowest? What happened between weeks 3 and 6? How much did the temperature increase from week ___ to ____? How much less was the temp in week ___ from week ____? What happened to the spring temperatures overall, from start to finish?
Part 5: Writing
stories into the computer. Perhaps someone (you, an assistant, or an older buddy student) can scribe the story by writing it out or typing it on the computer. You can also video tape the student telling their story. Have a share day/publishing party where the stories get shared with the class.
Part 6: Assessment