Easter has been on my mind this
week and it has been on the minds of my students as well. They love talking
about their plans. Skyler informed me that she is going to feed her fish, Roxie
and Goldie, special Easter food. She plans to hide it, so her fish can hunt for
the special treat. Olivya’s Dogs are going to get Easter eggs. She painted them
at home – blue and green for Quest and pink and purple for Roxy. Olivya is
going to hide the eggs for her dogs but her cat Luna will just get cat food.
She scratches.
Not all kids celebrate Easter, so I
steered the conversation away from the subject during many of my speech sessions
and for my language groups, I read a book about new life in the animal kingdom: My First Day, by Steve Jenkins and
Robin Page.
It begins with a question,
“What did
you do on your first day – the day you were born?”
A kiwi starts off with his answer.
“On my
first day, I spent hours kicking my way out of my egg. As soon as I hatched, I
was ready to take care of myself.”
This charming book introduced wood
ducks, sea otters, muntjacs and megapodes. I had never heard of some of the
animals in the story, nor had my students. All the creatures fascinated the
kids, but they were amazed when I
read about Darwin’s frog.
“On my
first day, I hopped out of my father’s mouth. When I was a tadpole, he kept me
safe in a special pouch in this throat. But once I became a frog, it was time
to be on my own.”
My students weren’t the only ones
to gather new information when we read this story; many of the animal facts
were new to me. At the back of the book the author provided more detailed
information about the animals and their habitats. That inspired my students to further research
and so we used the Internet on my iPad and found some photographs of the animals.
All this talk of animals reminded
Noah of his farm and his pig. He told us the pig made a huge nest of hay, just
like a chicken nest, only bigger. Noah figures his pig learned the technique
from the chickens because they live together. Nests brought the conversation
back to eggs and that brought us back to Easter. His chickens, it seems, lay
extra eggs on the holiday. I haven’t been to Noah’s house so I can’t say for
sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. After all, Easter is a time
full of new life and new hope. That hope obviously extends to Noah’s chicken
yard.
Omigosh! Too adorable! I love how not-so-common animals are featured - of course these are also ones that probably have the most unusual "first days" so it's rather fitting. Don't you love how you can access the internet for instant research? :) Thanks for linking into the Kid Lit Blog Hop.
ReplyDeleteI DO love the internet research - it is so fast and accessible.
DeleteA megapode? Now I need to google. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review on such an adorable book.
Cool Mom for Stanley and Katrina
Hopping along on the Kid Lit Blog Hop
Thanks for dropping by!
DeleteWe are always on the lookout for new nonfiction books, since I seem to gravitate toward fiction. Max knows the sounds for all the 'normal' - read barnyard and pets - animals at this point, so it'll be great to widen his animal sound vocabulary. Thanks for linking into the KLBH once again!
ReplyDeleteI tend to gravitate toward fiction, too, but I have several students who love nonfiction. I’m always happy to find a book we all can love.
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