Waiting For Winter

Waiting For Winter

By Sebastian Meschenmoser

Kane Miller, 2009

ISBN #978-1-935279-04-4

PB

“Winter is almost here,” said Deer. “I think it’s going to snow.”

“Snow?” asked Squirrel.

“Snow,” answered Deer. “White and wet and cold and soft.”

This simple story tells of the wait by squirrel to see snow, and as he waits and tries to stay awake he awakens hedgehog. Hedgehog decides to join him and in order for them to stay awake, they sing sea shanties. In the process of singing, however, they awaken bear, who decides to join them and see snow himself. Each of them in turn finds what he thinks is snow, until they all sit down….and it snows. The final endpapers show the result of their snow adventure.

A great deal of the action is portrayed by the minimal pencil drawings tinted with a hint of color and the short text moves the story along nicely. All together, the art and words make a fun and funny anticipation for the coming winter.

Activity

Define hibernation and dormancy. Look up some animals and see if they hibernate or go dormant for the winter.

This site has good kid-friendly information.

Here’s another good explanation.

This site includes migration and adaptations along with hibernation and dormancy.

National Science Standard: Life cycles of organisms

Book from Publisher for Librarian’s Choices Book Award Committee, TWU

Life in the Boreal Forest

 

Life in the Boreal Forest

Brenda Z. Guiberson

Illustrations by Gennady Spirin
Henry Holt and Co., 2009
ISBN #978-0-8050-7718-6

K-5^th grades

NF PB

“Tika tika tika swee swee! A Tennessee warbler sings in a forest so huge that it covers one third of the earth’s total forest area. It grows across Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia. A swath of trees this big has many names, like taiga and boreal forest. Boreal means northern, fro Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind.”

This gorgeous book describes the variety of life in the boreal forest in its natural context of habitat and the food web. Including even a bit on the relationship of the predators and prey, the text portrays the life cycles and habits of the life within the forest and the effects the environment cause to its inhabitants. The text explains the reasons for the dwindling amount of boreal forest, a primary premise of the book, but does so in a slightly heavy-handed manner. The information is detailed and ecologically oriented, and includes the food web relationships of the organisms along with their adaptations for survival in the rugged climate.

The illustrations are beautifully rendered in lifelike paintings positioned across three-fourth of the spread with the text in the remaining space, positioned on one side or the other of each spread. The starving animals make an interesting, if pitiful, addition to the realities of life in the boreal forest and its harsh conditions and illustrator Spirin has done an excellent job with them. The animals in action are fascinating and I personally love the snow covered, frozen pond with the beaver lodge and a passing dogsled team.

Activity 1

List the adaptations that enable the inhabitants of the boreal forest to survive the harsh conditions.

Activity 2

Create a food chain using some of the organisms from the book.

Activity 3

Look up information about tropical rain forests. Compare and contrast the differences in the rain forest and the boreal forest. Look for adaptations the organisms in the rain forest have that help suit them for that biome.

Rain forest biome information.

More details about rain forests.

This site has information and facts about the loss of rain forest habitats

Read more information here.

This site has good general information.

 This site has good information and games; however, some links wre not not working. If you have patience, there were a couple of them, including one about The Lorax, that looked fun.

National Science Standard: organisms and environments

 

Book supplied by publisher to Librarian’s Choices review committee

The Ant’s Nest

The Ant’s Nest

A Huge, Underground City

By Miriam Aronin

Bearport Publishing, 2010

ISBN # 978-1-59716-868-7

NF grades 3-5

“Just as human cities are made up of many building, ant nests are made up of many chambers. In each changer, the insects perform a different task to meet the colony’s needs.”

One of six in the series Spectacular Animal Towns, The Ant’s Nest details ant facts, from a spectacular mound found in England to a rare new species, with plenty of life cycle information packed in between. Bold, captioned photos add interest and additional facts and labeled diagrams provide further information. New vocabulary is in bold in the main text and defined in the  glossary. A chart provides a comparison of three species of ants and a “More Animal Towns” section summarizes two other insects that build and live in nests. The book includes a bibliography, read more section, and an index.

Activity 1

Use the information from the book to create and label a diagram illustrating the ant’s life cycle.

Activity 2 (for older students)

Look up another species of ant and add the facts learned about that ant to the chart on p. 28.

This site shows the ant life cycle.

You can find more ant information here.

Take an ant fact quiz and explore the links to more fun learning about ants with Roberta’s blog, Wild About Ants.

Search Roberta’s blog for more insect facts.

Here’s a site with terrific lessons.

National Science Standard: characteristics of organisms; life cycle of organisms

Book provided by Bearport Publishing

A Coral Reef Food Chain

 

A Coral Reef Food Chain : A Who-Eats-What Adventure in the Caribbean Sea

Follow That Food Chain series

by Rebecca Hogue Wojahn & Donald Wojahn 

Lerner, 2010

ISBN # 0-8225-7611-2

Nonfiction, grades 3-6

“This coral reef lies hidden in the warm, shallow water just off the shore of a Caribbean island. From the beach, waves gently roll over calm water. But duck your head under the waves, and you’ll see an underwater jungle full of life.”

This new food chain book from the series Follow That Food Chain allows the reader to create a food chain by choosing the next link in the food chain and then following that organism to the page listed. This particular book is especially good because it includes so many invertebrates and other varied species that are not well-known to children within the complex ecosystem of a coral reef. Animals such as fan worms, corals, sawfish, parrotfish, moray eels, nudibranchs, and sea urchins are among the consumers, with the producers and well-explained phytoplankton included in the chain information. Decomposers and their job in the chain are also included.

The sidebars add additional sections of information and the value or relationship of some of the organisms are explained. The main text highlights the unfamiliar words that are in the glossary. Bright photos and diagrams of specific connections forming a food web from the chains allow the reader to picture the connections of the organisms they’ve just read about. The book also contains a further reading section, a bibliography, and an index.

I’ve blogged on the temperate forest food chain book in this series, but this one has so many invertebrates I wanted to highlight  it. Food chains are important parts of the science curriculum, and these books provide an excellent way of teaching both organisms and the complex ideas within a food web.

Activity 1

Create your own food chain by following one of your choosing from the book. Make a diagram to show the energy flow.

Activity 2

Look through the book and find the invertebrates. Choose one invertebrate and look it up. Find out in which group it is classified according to the phylum, class, or order. Then find other animals in each group.

For more information about food chains and definitions, see this site.

This site has good information about the energy flow within a food chain.

Lovely coral reef and organism pictures

My previous blog on temperate forests is here. Go to my website and click on links in the toolbar to see my TLA presentation that includes a lesson on food chains.

Other books:

Ecosystems – Life in a Coral Reef by Hayley Haugen

Jump Into Science: Coral Reefs by Sylvia Earle

National Science Standard: organisms and environments

 Book provided by Lerner