Pre-Reading
Activities
Familiarize students
with our solar system and the planets, moons, and stars that
comprise it. Identify earth as the third planet from the sun
with a moon that orbits around it once a month. Discuss how,
beginning in the late 1950s, the U.S. and Russia were in a race
to reach the moon. Identify key spacecraft launches during the
period-including Sputnik, Vostok, Gemini and Apollo-and highlight
the first moon landing by Apollo 11 in 1969. Then, using a world
map, turn your students' attentions to underwater worlds, locating
and labeling major bodies of water and noting 70% of our planet's
surface is covered by water. Ask students to describe their
perceptions of the ocean floor and what ocean life forms they
know.
Classroom
Connections
Activities
for use with
Dolphins
and Sharks: A Nonfiction Companion to
Dolphins
at Daybreak
Getting Started
Using a map or a globe,
locate and name each of the four oceans on our planet. Using
Internet or library resources, invite students to find out how
large each of the four oceans is, listing from largest to smallest.
Have students compare the size of each ocean with the size of
the United States to demonstrate how vast these bodies of salt
water are.
Ask students to name
and share what they know about some of the millions of creatures
who make their homes in the ocean. Discuss how, in the ocean,
larger and stronger animals eat smaller and weaker ones, creating
a food chain . Ask them to guess, which among these
sea creatures are called predators given their place
at the top of the food chain.
Have students ever
seen dolphins or sharks at an aquarium, sea show, or in their
natural habitat? What were their impressions? What famous fictitious
dolphins and sharks (such as Flipper or the shark in Jaws
) have they heard of? Indicate that the information they
gather about dolphins and sharks through the following activities
will help to distinguish the reality of these spectacular creatures
from the myths that surround them.
How Deep Is
the Ocean?
• Science
• Art
Oceans are wide, covering
almost 140 million square miles of the earth’s surface, but
they are also deep, some going as far as six miles down. Using
a large shoebox, have students create their own ocean diorama
showing the three layers of the ocean and some of the different
creatures who live in each zone. Students can paint the back
of the inside of the box different shades of blue to show light
variations at each layer. They can use browns to create the
ocean floor on the bottom.
Then, have students
draw and color or cut out pictures of undersea creatures and
suspend them with string of different lengths to hang in their
appropriate zone. Pipe cleaners can be used to fashion coral
and seaweed; glitter can be used to add the right touch of underwater
sparkle.
"Eye"
Can Hear You!
• Science
• Physical
Education
Discuss with students
how dolphins depend much more on their ears than their eyes
to locate fish and other sea creatures they like to eat. Involve
them in a game to help them to better understand the process
of echolocation. In an open play area, one student will be the
dolphin and be blindfolded. Other students will be fish and
may stand, sit, lie down, or slowly mill about within set boundaries.
The dolphin sends out a verbal signal, “echo,” and the other
fish respond with “location.” Volume of responses may vary.
When the dolphin successfully tracks his food, the food becomes
the next dolphin and the game begins anew. Students may then
reflect on whether it is easier to find food by sight or by
sound and consider what would be different in a real ocean setting.
The Art of
the Bone
• Research
• History
• Art
Introduce students
to the term scrimshaw , the craft of carving designs
into bone, practiced by the whalers in the 1800s and learned
from many native peoples. Whalers would use the teeth or jawboned
of the whales to create elaborate carvings. Discuss how this
technique can be done with other materials, without harming
animals.
Supply each with a
paper and pencil, a large bar of soap (such as Ivory) with the
name scraped off to create a smooth surface, a plastic knife,
and black water-based paint with brush. Have students draw outlined
images of one or more dolphins or sharks they have become acquainted
with. Lay outline on soap and trace into surface using the plastic
knife. Remove paper and go over lightly with black paint. After
drying for a few minutes, lightly run water over soap to remove
excess paint, allowing color in carved areas to remain and enhance
their images.
Sidewalk Preditors
• Math
• Art
A great white shark
may grow to 21 feet and weigh as much as 7,000 pounds. A hammerhead
shark may grow as much as 20 feet and weigh in at 1,000 pounds.
Divide your class into small groups, each assigned with a particular
shark. Arm each group with a supply of sidewalk chalk and take
them out to a blacktop area (school yard, parking lot). Using
tape measures or rulers, have them measure out the length of
their predators and approximate their sizes in life-size outline
chalk drawings. Then have the entire class stand inside each
drawing, estimating how many times larger than the whole class
each shark predator is.
Cetacean Songs
• Music
• Science
• Language
Arts
The language of marine
animals in the group known as Cetacea includes various clicks
and whistles that often sound musical to the human ear. Most
striking is the song of the humpback whale. Choose from among
the various CDs or Web sites with downloads and have students
listen to the song of this majestic creature of the deep. How
does the music sound? Like an instrument? Like a cry? What feelings
do these songs evoke? Ask each student to write a free-verse
poem about the song of the humpback whale, describing how it
makes them feel. Complete this musical adventure with your class
singing “Baby Beluga ” by Raffi.
Shark Bytes
• Research
• Science
• Art
Separate your class
into five groups, assigning each group one of the five sharks
introduced in this research guide. (pp. 88–97) Using Internet
or library resources, have students further research the unique
attributes of each introduced in this guide, including their
abilities to hear, smell, see, swim, sleep, find and eat food,
and protect themselves. Have each group conduct a shark interview
for their class, with one student playing the role of the shark
and the others the roles of reporters who want to know all there
is to know about this ancient animal of the deep.
 Dolphins
or Sharks? Activity Sheet
Save
Our Dolphins and Sharks Activity Sheet
Rosemary B. Stimola,
Ph.D., teaches Children’s Literature at Hostos Community College/City
University of New York and serves as educational and editorial
consultant to publishers of children’s books.
Activities
for use with
Dolphins
at Daybreak
Create an Underwater
Scene
Jack and Annie are
amazed to find colorful mountains, valleys, caves, and sea planets
on the sandy bottom of the coral reef waters.
Have students compile
animal, plant life, and topographical data about this underwater
location using information in Dolphins at Daybreak and other
library and Internet resources. A large sheet of roll paper
offers a perfect palette for a jointly created underwater
landscape mural of coral shapes and swaying grasses done in
tempera. Individual students can make personal contributions
to the mural by drawing, cutting out, and pasting on pictures
of animal life typically found in these waters.
If I Could be
an Ocean Animal
- Art
- Language Arts
- Science
When Jack and Annie
dive into the ocean in their mini-sub, they enter a strange
new world filled with many unusual sea creatures.
Have students list
the different ocean animals that Jack and Annie encounter
on their undersea adventure. Ask them to choose which of these
sea creatures they would like to be for a day. In explaining
and justifying their choices, have students address the following
aspects of that animal's life in a short composition to be
read aloud:
- Undersea environment
- Shelter/protection
- Physical characteristics
- Predators/prey
- Friends
Check
out Jack and Annie's
Undersea Connect-the Dot Riddle.
Teaching ideas
by Rosemary B. Stimola, Ph.D., professor of children's literature
at City University of New York, and educational and editorial
consultant to publishers of children's books.
Activities
for use with
Space:
A
Nonfiction Companion to Midnight on the
Moon
Getting Started
Biography and Autobiography
Review the term nonfiction and discuss how a large portion of
nonfiction deals with people. Introduce the word biography by
writing the word on a card or on the board so that the class
can see it. Discuss that the prefix bio means life. A biography
is the story of a person's life written by another person. Add
the prefix auto. Ask the students if they have ever seen auto
before-e.g., automatic, automobile, etc. The prefix means of
or for oneself. A person writes an autobiography about himself
or herself. A collective biography is a collection of information
on the lives of two or more people. Ask the students if they
have ever read about another person or written a story about
themselves. Have they heard of Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton, Neil
Armstrong, or Sally Ride?
A Time Line
Study: Could Copernicus and Galileo Be Friends?
Chapter 1 discusses the beginning of astronomy over 2000
years ago. As a class, design a time line that would cover from
2000 B.C. to today that will be used throughout the study of
this book. Adding machine tape is inexpensive and easy to store.
Once you have measured out the tape, you may want to expose
only the time period being discussed in each point of your lesson.
TimeLiner software is an alternative to the adding machine tape.
Information
Power- One Small Step
Work with the school librarian to plan a scavenger hunt
in the library. This is a fun way to teach your students to
locate the sections of the library and the types of materials
that will be helpful in your studies of space. Since most libraries
have Internet access, the librarian can print a list of available
materials to use in your planning.
Create 5-10 stations
in the library. Prepare a list of questions or tasks, one for
each station. Assign partners and have each pair travel from
station to station. Have bonus questions available for students
in case all of the stations are busy.
Example:
1. Find the online
card catalog. How many books does your library have on the planet
Saturn?
2. Find an unabridged dictionary. What is the definition of
asteroid?
3. Find an encyclopedia. What volume has information on the
planet Pluto?
4. Find books on space located in the 520s. Write down the title
and the call number of a book on constellations.
5. Find a science dictionary. Find the definition of comet and
write a sentence using the word.
6. Find a biography. (Hint: Biographies have the number 92 or
the letter B on the spine, plus the first three letters of the
person's last name.) Write down the title and the call number
of a book on Sally Ride.
Postcards
from Space
Using research gathered from the book and other sources,
have each student design a postcard. On the front, he/she should
illustrate where they are in space. On the back, he/she should
share the facts in first person narrative. Students can start
by using the Astronomy for Kids Web site at: tqjunior.thinkquest.org/3645/eclipses.html?tqskip=1
If your class is truly Internet-savvy, students can e-mail virtual
postcards to one another by logging on to: www.windows.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/tour.cgi/cool_stuff/postcards.html
Stargazers
- Language Arts
- Science
- Art
Reread the pages on constellations. Have students investigate
the mythology and history of their favorite constellation by
visiting different Web sites, such as Constellation Mythology
at: www.coldwater.k12.mi.us/lms/planetarium/myth/index.html
or Fairfax County Public Schools Planetarium Web site at:
www.fcps.k12.va.us/DIS/OHSICS/planet/index.htm
With the information
gathered, each student should prepare a composition about the
history of a constellation or write an original story about
it. Have students design their constellations on black construction
paper, use a hole puncher to cut out the patterns, and then
back the black paper with yellow construction paper to represent
the light. Star stickers are an alternative to the hole puncher.
Mission Impossible
After reading Chapter 9, have students work in groups to
research the Apollo mission of their choice. The Apollo Program
Web site at www.nasm.si.edu/apollo/
is a great place for them to get started. Hand out the
Apollo
Notebook worksheet for the groups to record information
in an organized manner. Once the research is done, have each
group present their Apollo mission to the class as if it were
a news conference.
Got Space?
After reading about the future of space exploration in
Chapter 9, divide the class into groups and have them design
their own space city. The project developers will brainstorm
the requirements for life in space. This would include housing,
food, transportation, sanitation, and rules. The groups can
decide on the duration of their stay; it can be for a vacation
or for a longer period of time.
Teaching ideas
provided by Jamay Johnson, second grade teacher, and Melinda
Murphy, media specialist, Reed Elementary School, Cypress Fairbranks
Independent School District, Houston, Texas.
Activities
for use with
Midnight
on the Moon
It's Only
A Paper Moon
When Jack and Annie
land on the moon, they discover a dusty gray surface covered
with rocks and craters. Your students can create their own 3-D
paper moons using a white poster-board circle, white glue in
a squeeze bottle, and watercolors and water-based felt-tipped
pens, pencils, and sponges.
Have students draw
an outline in glue of several different-sized craters on their
paper circles. After the glue sets, the students paint the
color the inside of these craters in dark shades of blue,
green, or purple. Then they color the surface of a sponge
with felt-tipped pens while the watercolors dry. With sponges
slightly dampened, they gently wash the sponge across the
face of the moon to create a hazy appearance. Let dry and
hang for display.
Check
out Weight on the
Moon.
Certificate
of Achievement
Teaching ideas
by Rosemary B. Stimola, Ph.D., professor of children's literature
at City University of New York, and educational and editorial
consultant to publishers of children's books.
* All activities
require Adobe
Acrobat
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