Label: Animals

January 9, 2013

Welcome to Writing Wednesday!

Think about your favorite animal, and tell us why you like that animal so much. Use facts, concrete details and other information to convince us why your snow animal would be the best one ever!     

When you are finished writing, click on the yellow "comments" link at the bottom of this blog post if you would like to publish your snow animal writing for others to read. Or, share with your classmates, family or friends!

Happy (snowy) writing!

Note for Educators: Today’s Writing Wednesday exercise is designed to support CCSS Writing Standard w.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly. (2b) Develop the topic with facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples related to the topic.

December 5, 2012

Welcome to Writing Wednesday, which is about an item in today’s Science News.

Sandhill cranes are an endangered species, and bird scientists in Mississippi are going to unusual lengths to try to save their chicks by moving the babies to the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge.

The problem is, before you can move a chick, you need to catch it.

"We don’t want to spook the cranes," whispered Megan Savoie, crane project director at the Audubon Species Survival Center. Ms. Savoie was dressed in a white bag, her arms raised high when she said this. The rescuers are capturing the babies by dressing up like an adult sandhill crane!

Your Assignment: Imagine that YOU are one of the crane rescuers. In 50 words or less, tell us what would you whisper to the baby chicks so that they would not run away? How would you feel about being a rescuer?

When you have finished your writing, you can post it here if you would like others to read it. Simply click on the yellow "Comments" link at the bottom of this post to enter your writing. Or you can share your writing with your family, friends or your class.

Happy writing! 

Photo: The Associated Press 

December 4, 2012

My choice for Cool Photo of the Week is this shot of wild horses thundering through a canyon. It was shot by photographer Katarzyna Okrzesik. Aren’t they magnificent?

 You can read more about HORSES in my book of the same name. Look for it in your library!

Teachers - there is also a free, downloadable Teacher Guide to HORSES on this website. Click here to access. 

November 26, 2012

A gecko travels like Spiderman - using its sticky toe pads to walk up walls and across ceilings with ease. 

While those toe pads may seem simple, they are spectacularly designed, with millions of tiny hair-like structures called septulae (SEP-too-lay) that help them cling to any dry surface. A single gecko’s toe pads can hold the weight of two humans!

Researchers have learned recently that this only works when the surface is dry. If a gecko gets wet feet, it loses its grip, along with its "Spiderman" powers!

November 14, 2012

Good morning, and welcome to Writing Wednesday! Today we’re going to look at a portion of a book called A PINKY IS A BABY MOUSE, written by Pam Muñoz Ryan and illustrated by Diane deGroat. 

In this book, the author is talking about the names for the babies of all different animal species, and she asks a question: What is a baby bat called?

Your Assignment: Read the excerpt below and do some research. Find out what a baby bat is called, and then work with other students or friends to write a few more sentences about what you think is interesting, beautiful, or NOT beautiful about a baby bat. When you are finished, click on the yellow "Comments" link below to post your writing, or share it with your class.

Note to Educators: Today’s Writing Wednesday exercise is designed to use in support of CCSS Writing Standard #7: Participate in shared research and writing projects. A PINKY IS A BABY MOUSE is one of the exclusive, recorded eBooks available in the StarWalk Kids digital collection. Click here for more information about signing up for a free, 60-day trial for your school.

November 12, 2012

Yesterday was a very special day, because I went to the memorial service for the great writer Jean Craighead George. She died this year at age 92, and her daughter Twig told me that her mother had still been writing up until four days before her death. Isn’t that wonderful?

Jean grew up in a family of naturalists, in a house full of rescued wild animals. She once told an interviewer that when she started kindergarten she was shocked to discover that she was the only child who had a turkey vulture for a pet! She wrote in an essay for "Children’s Books and Their Creators": "I have discovered I cannot dream up characters as incredible as the ones I meet in the wilderness."

Her son, Dr. Craig George, is a Senior Wildlife Biologist in Barrow, Alaska, working with bowhead whales. Craig told the gathering that just a few years ago his mother camped with them on unstable ice, at minus 20 degrees, during the bowhead census. "She was absolutely fearless," he said.

Jean Craighead George wrote more than 100 books. The most famous one was JULIE OF THE WOLVES. Have you ever read it? It is a wonderful story about a girl known as Miyax in her small Eskimo village; to her friend in San Francisco, she is Julie. When Miyax runs away from her village, she finds herself lost in the Alaskan wilderness. In danger of starving to death, Miyax survives by copying the ways of the wolves. She is soon accepted into their pack, and when she finally returns to her old life, she struggles to decide who she is - Miyax of the Eskimos—or Julie of the wolves? 

Here is a passage from the story:

Miyax stared hard at the regal black wolf, hoping to catch his eye. She must somehow tell him that she was starving and ask him for food. This could be done she knew, for her father, an Eskimo hunter, had done so.

Jean Craighead George was a great supporter of the Wolf Conservation Center near her home in Chappaqua, New York.

At the end of yesterday’s memorial service, stories, we all sang "This Land is Your Land"......and then Twig asked for a minute of silence.

As we sat quietly, the doors in the back of the auditorium opened and a trainer leading a white wolf entered the room. We all rose to our feet as this gorgeous creature, from the wolf sanctuary that Jean Craighead George loved, took the stage and looked at us all. It was magical.

I admired Jean as a writer and a person. She was, and still is, an inspiration to my own writing. She will always remain one of the towering figures in children’s literature, one of the inspirational models for the rest of us in her field.

Photo: Rocco Staino / School Library Journal

November 2, 2012

I am relieved, grateful and aware that we were extremely lucky in the aftermath of the Hurricane Sandy superstorm that has devastated communities all around us. We don’t expect to have power back for quite some time in my neighborhood, but amazingly, though there are downed trees all around us, our house was untouched. We were very, very fortunate, and our hearts ache for our friends and neighbors throughout the Northeast who are struggling to recover from terrible losses.

In the midst of all this sobering news, I was so happy to receive this update today from  the staff at the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, NY. They wrote:  

Although Hurricane Sandy did a number on our Center in South Salem, NY, everyone is safe and sound. Dozens of enormous trees fell victim to the storm’s powerful winds, tearing down several fences in their fall. Although several enclosures were compromised, the wolves remained safe and contained during the powerful storm.

And so the rebuilding begins. 

 

October 31, 2012

Good morning, and welcome to Writing Wednesday. Today, we’re going to share an excerpt from a lovely book by Caroline Arnold and Richard Hewett, called WILD GOAT. Once you have read this and enjoyed the photograph of these adorable kids, you can write about it and post your writing for others to read! 

Your assignment: Tell us what you learned from the words in this selection. What did the pictures teach you? How did the words and pictures work together to help you understand the world of these baby goats?

When you have finished, click on the yellow "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog to post your writing.

WILD GOAT is one of the exclusive, recorded eBooks available in the StarWalk Kids digital collection. Click here for more information about signing up for a free, 60-day trial for your school.

October 23, 2012

It’s not just humans that find the doctor’s stethoscope is too cold when we go for our checkups.

This is Yakini, a newborn gorilla, being examined at the Melbourne Zoo, in Australia. Look at her face. I think we all know that feeling!

October 2, 2012

Tourists come from all over to visit Japan’s Toyama Bay between March and June, when millions of breeding firefly squid come to Toyama Bay to drop their eggs. The firefly squid is bioluminescent (buy-oh-loom-ih-NESS-cent), which means that is has special organs in its body that can produce light. Each of the squid’s tentacle has a light-producing organ called a photophore (FO-to-for). The squids flash these lights to attract small fish, on which the squid can then feed. The firefly squid can also light up its whole body to attract a mate.

I would love to see this, wouldn’t you?

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