Fireworks and Poetry

As part of the preparation for my upcoming trip, I have been studying in great depth the content of the elementary curriculum standards related to teaching about China. My goal is to learn more about these specific topics while in China so that I can develop some useful instructional resources for teachers. One of these curriculum standards requires students to look at inventions that came from ancient China, including kites, silk cloth, the compass, bronze, and fireworks.

Lately I have been reviewing sources on the history of fireworks. It is largely believed that the creation of gunpowder occurred by chance nearly 2,000 years ago in China. Some sources state that gunpowder was discovered when a cook accidentally mixed three common kitchen ingredients-charcoal, sulfur and sodium nitrate. Other sources claim that gunpowder was invented by scientists. Although the earliest written records of gunpowder in China occurs around 300 AD, it wasn't until the rule of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) that gunpowder saw regular use. During this time, Emperors used gunpowder to put on great fireworks displays.

Will this be the same information I get while in China? I don't know, but I am anxious to find out. We will be visiting several museums and I will be interested to see how far back the use of fireworks and/or gunpowder appears in works of art.

While fireworks have been much on my mind lately, I have written a cinquain about them. Enjoy!

Starburst
colors galore
dancing before the sky
launched heavenward to fall again
KABOOM!

Another New Poem - Rainbows

William and I went to a school fair yesterday morning and then spent some time after lunch blowing bubbles and making rainbows. When we finally came inside, he collapsed on the couch and slept for a good part of the late afternoon. I worked on revising some poems while he dreamed.

Here's one I wrote about rainbows. I revised the original (written for my middle schoolers) and it put in the form of a reverse Fib.

Sun behind, rain before - light bends
bounces, births an arc
resplendent
colors
bend
bow

Visit this Science Kids page to learn more about rainbows and how they form.

Poetry Saturday - Animal Families

William and I have been reading about animal families, so I was inspired to write this silly little poem. Enjoy!

A Family For You

Consider your life in
a warren or scurry

If your kin were a pride
would you need ever worry?

Are you suited to
tower or ambush or band?

Would play in a shrewdness
get way out of hand?

Imagine your clan is
a bloat or a pod

Would home in a prickle
be frighteningly odd?

Picture
a cackle
a richness
a gaze

In which of these groups could you
spend your days?

So
CHOOSE
while you can
and make it
fast
too

Because the Zookeeper
is coming for
YOU!

Thumbs up to you if you can name the animal groups. For a hint or two, visit this zoo page!

Poetry Friday - Bats!

Reading The Bat-Poet with William this week has put me in the mood for poems about these wonderfully useful mammals. Did you know that bats are helpful pollinators? That they help spread seeds so plants grow in new areas? They they can eat so many insects in one day (nearly half their body weight) that they are terrific natural pest controllers? In honor of these amazing creatures, I share two poems today.

This first one is an original.

Chiroptera
Nocturnal navigator
aerial magician
drop!
and flip
stall!
and grab
erratic flights of fancy

Not feathered
friend
but
mammal
on the wing

The second offering is an excerpt from D.H. Lawrence's poem entitled Bat. You can read the poem in its entirety here.

Bats, and an uneasy creeping in one's scalp
As the bats swoop overhead!
Flying madly.

Pipistrello!
Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe.
Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;

Wings like bits of umbrella.

Bats!

Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep;
And disgustingly upside down.
Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags
And grinning in their sleep.
Bats!
Not for me!

For even more bat poems, check out these books.

• Animal Poems by Valerie Worth
  
• Animal Sense by Diane Ackerman
• Eric Carle's Animals, Animals (you'll find the first portion of the D.H. Lawrence poem here)
  
• zoo's who by Douglas Florian
  

Finally, if you want to learn more about bats, visit this bat page from the San Diego Zoo. Happy Poetry Friday, all!

Why I Blog

I've been asked recently why I blog, so I thought I would share my thoughts here. The best way to begin to answer this question is show you some pictures. This is my spice drawer.
The spices are ordered alphabetically and they are all labeled. My friends and family like to annoy me by rearranging them.

This is a picture of the the cabinets in the kitchen I designed.
The women I work with insisted I was crazy to want white cabinets ("They'll get dirty.") with glass fronts ("You'll have to keep them neat.") I was not swayed by these arguments. I have a huge selection of pottery that I wanted to show off instead of hide behind a door. I love the colors and shapes that you can see.

These two pictures say a lot about me. My friends in grad school called me "anal retentive." My dissertation advisor hated this term, so he called me ABC - A Bit Compulsive. It's true, and because of this, I have a very hard time letting my work go unless it's perfect (see comment about perfectionist in my profile). If it weren't for my dissertation advisor prying my work out of my hands, I would be ABD and endlessly rewriting.

I know that good writing is never finished, that writing well is all about revising and rewriting, but I never seem to feel like my work is at a point where I can say it's "done." This is why I blog. I want to write more, need to practice, and must learn to let it go. Whether the writing here is mundane, academic, or silly, it gives me a chance to work on my writing, allows ideas floating around in my head to see the light of day, and encourages me to keep going. So, that's why I started blogging. I keep going now because I have been embraced by this amazing community that is the kidlitosphere and I want so much to be an active part of it. I hope in some small way that I am contributing as much to the world as these wonderful folks offer to me.

That's my story. Why do you blog/write?

Meet My Daemon

At the movie site for The Golden Compass you can meet your daemon by taking a 20 question personality profile. Here's mine.

Thanks to Child_Lit listserv for the info!

The Impact of the Cover

I was thinking today about how much the cover of a book can entice a reader. Having spent an hour this morning just browsing at my local bookstore, I was drawn to a number of books based on the cover art. If I was moved by the title or art, I picked it up and read more.

Take a look at some of these categories of books in my teaching library and see if they don't raise your interest just a bit. If you get to the page and see the list view, click on cover view for a real treat.

• Counting Books
• Geography
• Poetry
• Trees
• Wordless Picture Books

Now, don't these images make you just want to run out and check out some of these titles at your local library or independent bookseller?

The Visual Me

In the last four days I have had tetanus, hepatitis A and typhoid shots, been smushed and pushed, had a yearly exam, an eye exam, taken my husband for emergency medical treatment for chest pains and difficulty breathing (just some badly bruised ribs), and spent more than 180 collective minutes on hold trying to find out why my passport STILL hasn't arrived. (Yes, I'm leaving in 20 days and in addition to my passport, I need a Chinese visa.)

Pause. Deep breath. This is where I tell you I need a bit of silliness in my life. So, today on my lunch break while eating in front of my computer, I followed the kidlit crowd (Kelly, Michelle and Libby to name a few) and got my VisualDNA. Have a look!

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Exploring the Natural World - Part 3

In this third and final post in my series on exploring the natural world, I thought it would be helpful to point you to some of my best resources for outdoor education. Some of these are designed specifically for teachers, while others are actually written for kids. These are the books I turn to over and over again for great ideas for exploring nature.

First, a general plug for environmental education programs. I am a facilitator for Project WILD, Project Learning Tree (PLT), Population Connection. and Wonders of Wetlands. All of these groups publish comprehensive curriculum materials that provide background information and useful activities, many of them outdoor. If you can get to a workshop and receive these materials, by all means do.

In addition to these resources, the following books help to round out my collection of resources for teachers.

• I have two well-worn copies of the original books published by Joseph Cornell, Sharing Nature with Children and Sharing the Joy of Nature. You can find the 20th anniversary edition of Sharing Nature with Children, and Sharing Nature with Children II at Dawn Publications. These are filled with a variety of games and activities that will help young and old get more in touch with the world around them.

• Nature with Children of All Ages by Edith Sisson - This publication from the Massachusetts Audubon Society is chock full of ideas for exploring the natural world. I particularly like the thematic organization, where topics such as tree, plants, seeds, invertebrates, birds, etc. can be found.

• Hands-on Nature: Information and Activities for Exploring the Environment with Children edited by Jenepher Lingelbach - I have the "old" version of this publication, but it still serves me well. Produced by the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, this guide is divided into chapters on adaptations, habitats, cycles and designs of nature.

• The National Gardening Association Guide to Kids' Gardening by Lynn Ocone with Eve Pranis - Gardening is a terrific way to get kids outside and looking closely at the life cycle of plants. This guide was my gardening "bible" for a long time.
  

• The Kids' Nature Book: 365 Indoor/Outdoor Activities and Experiences by Susan Milord - Structured in calendar format, this book provides an activity for every day of the year.

• The National Wildlife Federation has published a series called Ranger Rick's NatureScope. Covering a range of subjects, such as weather, geology, trees, endangered species, etc., these guides provide extensive background information and activities.

There are many books written for kids that I use not only to guide my selection of activities, but as wonderful resources for grabbing their attention and focusing them on what they may find/see outdoors.

• Nature Detective: How to Solve Outdoor Mysteries by Eileen Docekal - Set up in a mystery format, this book includes information on animal tracks, animal houses, pond creatures, bird songs, animal scents, seeds, fungi, weather, and nocturnal creatures. Each chapter presents a "case" for children to solve.
  

• Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You by Clare Walker Leslie - This wonderful book offers simple techniques to motivate readers of all ages to go outside, observe the natural world, and sketch and write about what they see.
  

• Field Trips: Bug Hunting, Animal Tracking, Bird Watching, Shore Walking by Jim Arnosky - This book, written in field-journal format, provides helpful hints for taking successful outdoor field trips with kids.

• My First Green Book by Angela Wilkes - This practical, oversized volume provides hands-on activities that demonstrate the importance of pitching in to protect our planet. Similar in format to the Eyewitness series, the book is filled with large-scale, color photos that effectively illustrate such experiments as those that show how clean the air is, how acid rain affects plants, how various objects biodegrade at different rates (if at all) and why rain forests are so crucial to the Earth. Other projects include creating a wildlife garden in a flower box, planting a tree and organizing a "green campaign" with one's friends.
  

• My First Nature Book by Angela Wilkes - Also an oversized volume in the format of the Eyewitness series, this book provides an introduction to nature through a variety of simple indoor and outdoor activities including collecting seeds, feeding birds, watching a butterfly grow and more.

• Woods Walk: Peepers, Porcupines & Exploding Puffballs! What You'll See, Hear & Smell When Exploring the Woods by Henry Warren Art and Michael W. Robbins - Organized by season and filled with fun and interesting facts, this book explores what you will find in the forests of North America.

• Nature in the Neighborhood by Gordon Morrison - Each double-page spread in this book reveals the diversity and abundance of life that can be found in your own backyard.
  

Please let me know if you have any favorite resources for getting kids outdoors and teaching about our wonderful world. I would love to hear about them.

**If you missed the earlier entries, please do read Part 1 and Part 2.

What Shall I Read? - Audio Books, Please!

Monica over at educating alice left a comment on my last post in which she said "I'd go for Austen myself (or how about Dickens? I'm having a wonderful time listening to them. Just finished Nicholas Nickleby --- fantastic yet again!) ."

Listening. Hmmmmmm. This option never even crossed my mind. While I have been updating my iPod and making music choices, I haven't thought a whit about audio books. I noticed that in the comments section of Kelly's recent post entitled Books That Make Me Ask: "Am I Alone Here?", several folks responded that they found their experience with the audio version of The Book Thief to be very different (and generally more positive) from the written word. The only book I have ever read by listening was Dennis LeHane's Mystic River, and this was only because I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie. I was moved by the narration, the prose, and word choice. Listening to it while on a 10 hour drive to Buffalo and again back to Richmond made the time fly, though it did little in the way of improving my driving skills. In the end, I did not see the movie, not wanting to ruin the experience of listening to this amazing story.

So, this is a long-winded introduction to the question of what to include in my listening library. Since I have no real experience with audio books, what do you recommend? What stories have you listened too and been moved by or just simply found pure enjoyment in?

What Shall I Read? - Recommendations Please!

I do not like to fly, and the thought of the 14+ hours from Chicago to Toyko, not to mention the legs from Richmond to Chicago and Tokyo to Taipei have me wondering what I'll do with the time. I am already collecting a pile of books to take with me. I have some new books I have not read, but do not want to weigh my bag down with hardcovers. So far my pile includes:

• The Fetch of Mardy Watt by Charles Butler - Thanks to Michele at Scholar's Blog and the author himself, a signed copy arrived on my doorstep a short time ago. I am saving this one for the trip.
• Coraline by Neil Gaiman - Okay, I'll reluctantly admit I haven't read this, largely because I read several reviews comparing it to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a book of which I've never been particularly fond. But thanks to the enthusiasm of Fuse #8 and others for Mr. Gaiman and his work, I am ready to jump in.
• Well-worn and loved copies of Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are ALL on the pile. I never travel without one copy of Jane Austen, though I'm not sure which it will be at this point.
• I'm also quite fond of the works of E.M. Forster. Perhaps Howards End, A Room With a View or A Passage to India may make the trip.
  

I would love to take copies of the recent Newbery books, but alas, they are all still in hardcover. So, what are your thoughts? What paperback reads do you recommend for this long trip across the planet?

It's Here! - The 13th Carnival

The 13th Carnival of Children's Literature has landed over at Jen Robinson's place in cyberspace. Head on over and check out the midway attractions. You'll find picture book, middle grades, and young adult reviews. There are booklists, poetry and performance artists. There is a list of assorted kid-lit related fare, as well as commentary on prizes and awards. Finally, if you are a fan of humor, start at the bottom and enjoy a few laughs from some very thoughtful and entertaining bloggers.

So, grab a a cup of whatever you're drinking (mine is a huge pot of tea), and settle in for a little exploration today. You are bound to find lots here to enjoy.

The Trip of a Lifetime - 25 Days and Counting

With only 25 days left until I depart for the other side of the world, I am growing more and more excited. I just received the most wonderful set of notebooks from Vickerey. I will be using them to document the sights, sounds, tastes and smells. I plan to take a small set of colored pencils so that I can make some sketches as well. I will, of course, take my camera and laptop in the hopes of documenting things more formally on my blog. I only hope I can live up to the high standard set by Grace Lin on her recent trip to Hong Kong.

I have been struggling to post lately because it is not only the end of the semester, but because I seem to be spending every free minute reading in preparation for the trip. I was fascinated by, and learned a great deal from John Pomfret's book, Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China. This week I finished the highly academic collection of essays on Tibet found in Contemporary Tibet: Politics, Development, and Society in a Disputed Region. Over the next two weeks we will embark on our third book, Untying the Knot: Making Peace in the Taiwan Strait.

I am fortunate to be traveling with a very diverse group of faculty members, most of whom I don't know well, but am learning about already through our weekly seminars. They come from the departments of political science, philosophy, journalism, music, history, economics, marketing and management. The director of University Museums is also joining us. We are being led by a colleague who is a noted scholar of Asian studies, with a particular emphasis on China and Taiwan. So, on May 15th, eleven of us, five women and six men, will depart for Taiwan. In our nearly three weeks abroad we will visit Taipei, Beijing, Lhasa (Tibet), Kunming, and Shanghai. We will return on June 3rd, one day before my 13th wedding anniversary.

My mind is constantly filled with thoughts of the trip these days. During meetings, my mind and pen turn to making lists of what I will pack. I lay awake at night thinking about everything I will do and see. I am outlining what I want to collect for the "Ancient China Study Box" I will be creating for second grade teachers in our local schools. My plan is to write as much as possible about teaching this portion of the curriculum while I am actually in China experiencing all it has to offer.

I am so excited. I hope you will join me here once I set off on this grand adventure. I would love to share my story with you.

The Bio DaVersity Code

I don't usually post videos, but in anticipation of Earth Day, I want to share the Bio DaVersity Code. The science is good, but I must reluctantly admit to being one of the few people on the planet who hasn't read The DaVinci Code or seen the film. Even without this background, the video works for me!

Poetry Friday - Two Poems

Gregory K. at GottaBook and Elaine at Wild Rose Reader have been posting original poems each day in honor of National Poetry Month. These talented and creative overachievers have inspired me to revisit some of my own work. Today I share two science poems, one original and one by a favorite author.

First, here's a poem I wrote for my middle school students when we were studying reptiles.

My Shell
Carapace of brown and black,
heavy shield upon my back.
Ribs and backbone fused to it,
all to my body carefully knit.
Protection of the toughest kind,
impossible to leave behind.

The second poem today (and one somewhat related to mine) comes from J. Patrick Lewis. I'm just crazy about his work. Please Bury Me in the Library is laugh-out-loud funny, and I use both Arithme-Tickle: An Even Number of Odd Riddle Rhymes and Scien-Trickery: Riddles in Science in my classes. Students seem to love the poems as much as I do.

So, without further ado, poem number 2 comes from Scien-Trickery.

Shell Game
Here is where
The giant tortoise
Moves as slow as
Rigor mortis.

Darwin studied
Awesome fauna-
Finches, cormo-
rants, iguanas

On this scien-
tific shore
Off the coast of
Ecuador.

For the answer to the riddle, view this short clip. If you haven't yet seen the National Geographic film, you should!

Happy poetry Friday, all.

Reading Aloud in Kindergarten

In February I was the guest reader in my son's kindergarten classroom. He and I spent some time the night before my visit to look over his favorite picture books and select the ones I would read. I told William that my goal was to read "fun" books his teacher had not already shared with the class. I also told him he needed to think about selecting books that both the boys and girls in his class might enjoy. William then picked out several of his favorites and told me to "surprise him" by picking from the pile he had made. My final choices?

• 19 Girls and Me by Darcy Pattison - What happens when a young boy finds that his kindergarten class is full of girls? While his second grade brother is worried that playing with girls will turn John Hercules into a sissy, John Hercules learns how much fun pretending with friends can be.
• Big Chickens by Leslie Halakoski - Alliteration abounds as 4 cowardly, cautious, careful, chicken chickens walk into the woods to escape a wolf. This is a fun romp that the kids loved.
• A Frog in the Bog by Karma Wilson - Meet a greedy frog who eats "ONE tick, TWO fleas, THREE flies (Oh my!),/ FOUR slugs (Ew, ugh!) in the belly of the frog/ on a half-sunk log/ in the middle of the bog." When his belly grows to an enormous size, that log he's been sitting on decides it's time to eat.

I will make my second, and last appearance this Friday. So far, William's pile includes the following titles.

• Clancy the Courageous Cow by Lachie Hume - Clancy is a belted Galloway without a belt. Find out how he saves his herd teaches two very different groups of cows to get along. For more, Fuse #8 has written a terrific review you should read.
  
• Chowder by Peter Brown - The Wubbington's bulldog is treated more like a child than a dog. Find out how he finally makes some animal friends who accept him for who he is.
  
• Enemy Pie by Derek Munson - When Jeremy Ross moves into the neighborhood, a young boy's summer is ruined. With the help of his dad, he decides to make an enemy pie to get rid of Jeremy, however, for enemy pie to work, the boy must spend an entire day with Jeremy. Will enemy pie work?
  
• A Spree in Paree by Catherine Stock - Monsieur Monmouton takes his farm animals on a day trip to Paris, where they take in ALL the sites. The ink and watercolor illustrations are fabulous.
  
• Tikki Tikki Tembo retold by Arlene Mosel - When a Chinese boy falls into a well, help doesn't come quickly because the boy's name is long must be pronounced in full. The name? Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo. What fun to read!
  

Clancy the Courageous Cow is one I'll definitely take with me. The other two titles are up in the air. So, good readers, what do you think? What books do you think a group of Kindergarten kids would like to hear on a Friday afternoon?

Book Review - George Washington Carver: An Innovative Life

In February I wrote a post on African American Scientists and Inventors. Sadly, as I worked to describe books I share with my students, I realized that the list of titles numbered only five. I am happy to report the I have a new book to add to this list, and it is a remarkable addition.

While most people know that George Washington Carver was responsible for finding more than 300 uses for peanuts and more than 150 for sweet potatoes, there is much more to discover about one of the Tuskegee Institute's most famous professors. Did you know that George Washington Carver:

• was an artist and gifted painter (largely creating compositions of flowers and plants)?
• lived as a homesteader in western Kansas for about three years?
• sang and played the accordion?
• entered college at the age of 26, determined to study art?
• exhibited a painting at the World's Fair in Chicago?
• earned a Masters degree and became the first African American teacher at Iowa State?

I loved learning about the journeys in life that made George the man he was. Too often history is taught as a collection of names and dates, with little attention to the fact that extraordinary things are accomplished by ordinary people, often in the face of great adversity. History comes alive for students when we remember to focus on these individuals, and look at the events of time through the eyes of those who lived it.

This book is the latest addition to the Snapshots biography collection, a series that highlights important figures through accessible text that is supported by photographs, newspaper excerpts, journal pages, timelines and more. Elizabeth MacLeod has done a tremendous job of writing an engaging text that introduces readers to a George Washington Carver that just isn't described in most biographies for children. The quotes in the text are moving, and one can't help but cheer for George as the book marches on through events in his life, even though the outcome is known. From his birth to his death and the lingering impact of his work, MacLeod has written a book that celebrates and illuminates the life that was George Washington Carver's.

The dearth of well-written books for children on African American scientists and inventors is marked. This volume successfully begins the work of filling the void. My hope is that volumes on others of note, such as Benjamin Banneker and Lewis Latimer, will follow.

Teachers engaged in study of George Washington Carver should find that this text will make an engaging read aloud. Here is an excerpt.

George was a small boy and often sick, so he helped Aunt Sue with indoor work such as laundry, cleaning and cooking.

When George's chores were done for the day, he headed off to collect rocks, insects and plants. He carefully dug up flowers and replanted them in a secret garden he kept. There he watched over them, finding out how to make them grow better.

George also helped Aunt Sue with her vegetable and flower gardens. He gained a reputation for being able to make any plant grow and was nicknamed "Plant Doctor." Years later, George's love of plants would make him famous around the world.

This is a fine book that deserves a home in school and classroom libraries. I give it my highest recommendation.

Book: George Washington Carver: An Innovative Life
Author: Elizabeth MacLeod
Publisher: Kids Can Press
Publication Date: February, 2007
Pages: 32
Grades: 3 and up
ISBN-10: 1-553379063
ISBN-13: 978-1553379065
Source of Book: Copy received from Raab Associates, Inc.

Poetry Friday - Just Read!

Elaine's recent cinquain post got me thinking about this form of poetry. Since yesterday was National D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read) Day, I wrote this original poem during a really l-o-n-g meeting. Today, I share it!

Read to Know
You can
travel the world
visit places unknown.
Dream, pretend, do over again,
just read!

Happy poetry Friday, all!

Exploring the Natural World - Part 2

When I began teaching, I found myself in a school that was located adjacent to a cemetery that occupied 249 acres of prime green space in the city of Buffalo. With more than 200 species of trees, it was an amazing arboretum. Numerous birdhouses placed throughout the cemetery made it a year-round haven for more than 240 kinds of birds. Founded in 1849, Forest Lawn Cemetery is a veritable garden, with rolling hills, roads that curve and intertwine with the landscape, spring-fed lakes, a creek, and a wide array of sculptures that reflect the natural setting.

While the school itself had a field, it was the cemetery that started me on the path to using the outdoors as a classroom worthy of our attention. Some of the activities my students and I engaged in can be done in any outdoor setting. So, building on the activities described in Part 1, here are some more ideas for getting kids outside and learning in the natural world.

The Year of the Tree - Select a tree (preferably deciduous) that you would like to observe through the course of a year. Every two weeks (or any time period that makes sense to you) give children the opportunity to make a detailed observation of the tree, with the goal of creating a book at the end of the year. The first page of the book should include a description of the location of the tree, with information on why that particular tree was chosen. On this first observation, children should do the following:

• Make a rubbing of the bark (to serve as the cover of the book)
• Select one leaf for pressing
• Make a detailed sketch of the tree
• Look for and record signs of life in the tree, such as nests, holes, etc.
• Use a large string to find the circumference of the tree
  
• Estimate the height of the tree
• Measure the child's shadow and the tree's shadow at the same time of day. Calculate the tree's height by using the following ratio: child's height/child's shadow = tree's height/tree's shadow. (You can learn more about measuring tree height at this site on Mapping the Louisiana Territory.)

On every visit to the tree, children should make a sketch and record information about how it looks, smells, and feels at the time. Encourage observation of the tree both up close and from a distance. Spend at least five minutes sitting at the base of the tree just watching for signs of life. At the end of the year of observation, all sketches and notes should be assembled into a book about the tree. (If you are interested in using a "ready-made" form, the Science Spot has pages for an Adopt-a-Tree activity.)

• Sky Tree: Seeing Science Through Art by Thomas Locker - In this book, Locker depicts the same tree throughout the seasons. This is a terrific book for helping children to notice even the smallest changes that occur through time.

• One Small Place in a Tree by Barbara Brenner - When a bear uses a tree as a scratching post, it sets off a chain of events that leads to a large hole that becomes home to a variety of forest animals. This is a great book for looking at many of the species of animal that can call a tree home.

Focused Observation - When I first begin to take kids outside, we do two activities designed to help them become better observers. In the first, I assign partner and give each pair a hula-hoop. The pair finds a spot in the yard, field or forest they would like to focus on. The hoop is laid on the ground, where it provides the boundaries for the observational field. How much can you find in this "small" circle? PLENTY! The first job should be to simply sit and look at all that is inside the hoop. Kids should sketch what they see in their journals. How many kinds of grass or vegetation are in the hoop? Knowing the names here isn't important, but rather recognizing that things look different. Encourage kids to get down on their knees and use their hands or a stick to part the vegetation and see what is beneath. A hand lens will help here. I often set timer this activity and then ask for groups to share what they have found. I also give groups the opportunity to repeat with a second plot so that they can see how different these small areas can be.

The second activity focuses on our ability to hear what is happening around us. Before we start, we sit together in the grass and I read The Other Way to Listen by Byrd Baylor. Then, each child finds a spot to lean against a tree. We all close our eyes and spend several minutes just listening. When the timer goes off, the children open their journals and record what they heard. We repeat one more time, and after children have made their journal entries, we share what we heard.

• For many good books about using your senses for observation, read this entry entitled Books That Fill the Senses.

Bug Hunting - Sometimes searching for small forms of life is easier and more interesting than looking for other animals. First, a bit about the word bug. In this case, we are looking for insects, spiders (arachnids), centipedes and millipedes. These are members of the phylum arthropod (we have left out crustaceans), the largest phylum of animals, containing more than 80% of known animal species. It may not be particularly scientific, but the word bug works for kids. I love to take kids on a bug hunt, both inside and outside the classroom. Inside? Yes, we share the indoors with lots of these little creatures. What kinds of bugs live in your house or classroom? If you don't see the bugs, can you see signs that they were there? Once your bug hunt moves outside, there are many places to look for bugs. In the air, trees, dirt, fallen logs, fence posts, bushes, etc. In the early morning hours you can even take a web hunt to see if the spider webs you find are different in location and appearance. You can take bug boxes along on your hunt, but I prefer to leave animals where I find them and just look. However, I do hold ladybugs, caterpillars and spiders so nervous kids can get a closer look. If you do this at home with your kids, consider hunting in the early morning hours and at dusk. You should see a marked difference in the bugs you observe.

• Field Trips: Bug Hunting, Animal Tracking, Bird Watching, Shore Walking by Jim Arnosky - This book, written in field-journal format, provides helpful hints for taking successful outdoor field trips with kids. A visit to the coloring pages at Jim Arnosky's web site provides reproducibles for 100 animals every child should know. There are many "bugs" on this list, and these pages can be incorporated into field trip journals.

That's all for now. In the next entry in this series I will share some terrific teacher resources that provide ideas for sharing nature with children.

**Continue on and read Part 3!

Carnival of Environmental Education

Alone on a Limb has published the first carnival of environmental education. The inaugural edition of Learning in the Great Outdoors is out there just waiting for you to explore. It begins:

I have listed more of my own posts than I would have had there been more submissions. I also have posted links to several websites that may be of interest to you. And I have gone out and solicited permission to post a few links to blogs that I found helpful or interesting. We hope our visitors will spread the word and help this grow into a real clearinghouse for web log posts about outdoor education.

So, here I am, spreading the word. Please visit and then consider submitting an entry of your own for the next go-round.