Behavioral Objectives
1. Students will be able to learn about wolves and why they are important to the ecosystem.
2. Students will be able to use informational materials such as the stories, Scruffy the Wolf Who Finds His Place in the Pack , and The Call of the Wolves , to help create factual stories and poems. They will create pop-up books with construction paper.
3. Students will be able to create a mural depicting the environment in which wolves exist, with a focus on Alaska and Canada.
Materials
KWL Chart
Scruffy, the Wolf Who Finds His Place in the Pack
The Call of the Wolves
Encyclopedias
White Mural Paper
Tempera Paints/ Paint Brushes
Oak Tag
Cray-pas
Cotton
Construction Paper
Glitter |
Procedure
1.To begin the unit, the children will be presented with a KWL Chart (What you Know, What you Want to Know, and What you have Learned). We will fill in the first two columns together and save the last column until we have completed our readings.
2. We will then begin our reading with Scruffy, The Wolf Who Finds His Place in the Pack . We will work on predictions prior to reading. The children will then be able to answer guided reading questions as they read each page. Using Bloom's Taxonomy (click here to view Blooming Question's sheet) is an excellent strategy and enables the children by having them use higher thinking skills.
3. The next day the children can reread the story with a partner and gather information about wolves.
4. The Call of the Wolves can be introduced the next day. Have the children make predictions and determine the purpose of the story. Use guided reading questions to assess comprehension. When the first reading is done, the children can work with a partner. They can begin by using the Blooming Questions and then gather information from the story.
5. The next step is to have the children work in encyclopedias or if they have access to a computer that can be used as well. They will independently gather more information that they need for their writing project. When they have successfully gathered enough information, they will present that to the teacher and provide their genre for their writing piece. Even if they decide to do a folk tale they are to incorporate facts into the story.
6. The Writing Process is to be used to guide them through their story/poem writing.
The Writing Process
1. Pre-Writing: make-up ideas, brainstorm, thinking
2. Rough Draft: free writing for content.
3. Revision: check over your work to see if you have a topic sentence, a beginning, middle, and end, a conclusion sentence, and if you stayed on the topic.
4. Proofreading: check over your work for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.
5. Publishing: The finished product
6. When the children have completed the five steps of the writing process, they will then create their pop-up background book. The first step is to mount construction paper on the oak tag. The pop-up will be the main idea of the story/poem. The background is to be related to the story as well. An example is shown here.
7. The children will then begin working on the mural which will depict the environment in which wolves live. The children will also create a map of the Canada and Alaska, with a key, showing the different types of animals that live in the region. They will use encyclopedias and the computer to gather this information. To begin the mural, the children will use tempera paints to decorate the background. They will use photographs to guide them toward a realistic depiction. After the paint is dry they will use cray-pas and cotton to add details to the picture, ie; snow on mountains. Other children will be working on creating 3D animals and other background pieces, such as trees and bushes, that will be added to the mural.
8. The finished project will have the stories and poems bordering the mural.
Examples of finished exhibit by Ms. Basner's class, NY
