#1346. guided reading "in the night sky"

4 Blocks, level: Elementary
Posted Sun Oct 10 20:17:24 PDT 1999 by deb ().
Concepts Taught: space, nocturnal, bats,

Harcourt Brace Signatures
Second Grade
Second Theme In the Night Sky

I am also including the ISBN numbers to the books so that you can do these lessons without having the basal. I don't have a basal. I gather together books and teach with these materials. Don't ignore this post if you don't have this basal. There are a lot of good books included in this basal. I found that I have several of these books.

These are available from other sources:

The Great Ball Game retold by Joseph Bruchac
ISBN: 0803715390 (hardcover)
Batty Riddles by Katy Hall and Lisa Eisenberg
ISBN 0-14-038724-2 (paperback)
Creatures of the Night by Judith E. Rinard
ISBN: 9997433408 (hardcover)
The Night of the Stars by Douglas Gutierrez
ISBN: 091629174X (paperback)
Postcards from Pluto by Loreen Leedy
ISBN: 0823412377

I don't have sources for these:
De Koven by Gwendolyn Brooks
This poem is in one of her books, I don't know which one
The Starry Night (artwork by Vincent can Gogh)
I have no source for this
Shooting Stars by Franklyn M. Branley
Out of print
3-2-1 Blast-Off! (Only in the book --- tells about astronauts)
Postcards from Pluto by Loreen Leedy
ISBN: 0823412377

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Batty Riddles by Katy Hall and Lisa Eisenberg
Read some riddles to the kids. There are plenty of bat riddle books available and kids love jokes. I keep an ongoing riddle basket as one of my self-selected reading baskets. Some teachers have riddle books as part of center time which is separate from 4 blocks.

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Since it is important to develop nonfiction and fiction, I would begin this unit by reading Creatures of the Night. Start a graphic organizer labeling three columns: animal; activities at night; activities during the day.

Then read pages about the raccoon. Read both pages chorally. Then begin filling in the chart.

Raccoons

Activities at night
Raccoons go to the river
They are hungry at night.
They eat frogs.
The babies are active too.

Activities during the day
Raccoons sleep during the day

Then read pages about the bats.
Fill in the graphic organizer some more

Bats

Activities at night
Flying foxes fly searching for fruit in the evening.
Horseshoe bats search for insects.

Activities during the day
Flying foxes (bats) hang upside down from tree branches.

Continue reading and filling in together.
Read pages about Flying Squirrels.
Then read pages about Opossum.

As a follow up for a reading response journal, have the children write about a time that they stayed up late at night. Did they hear sounds that were different? See different things? What happened? Another idea is to have the kids write down what they do at night and during the day.

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The Great Ball Game retold by Joseph Bruchac
ISBN: 0803715390 (hardcover)

This is a good link between books helping kids get along and a study of bats. I read this book on the day that I read Stellaluna with my students.

As the children read The Great Ball Game, have them focus on what the bat facts are that helped bat win the contest between bat and bird?

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The Night of the Stars by Douglas Gutierrez
ISBN: 091629174X (paperback)

This is a good story to discuss different genre. This is a story explaining why there are stars and the moon. I follow up this story with reading The Moon Book by Gail Gibbons and writing true facts about the moon and stars.

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Shooting Stars by Franklyn M. Branley

Before reading the first nine pages, ask these questions:

How do meteoroids get hot?
How do meteoroids provide light?
What is a meteorite?

Generate more questions then read the rest of the story. Then pull together and answer the questions they generated by looking at the story and reading the sentences that help answer.

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321 Blast-Off

If you don't have the basal, this section is simply celebrating astronaut accomplishments. Reading a book about astronauts will do the same thing.

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Postcards from Pluto: A Tour of the Solar System By Loreen Leedy

Read the story. Then have the kids write their own postcards. I let the kids go into other subjects. My kids write about bats or owls or space. By allowing them some freedom, the postcard quality improves.