A Whale of a Tale

Break out the slide whistles, triangles, and tambourines. It's time for a punctuation lesson. This richly detailed plan is loaded with ideas and activities for using rhythm instruments to accent the punctuation in folk tales. A great way...

What is a proverb? This is the leading question of this resource. First, explore proverbs and their meanings. Then, read aloud The Hidden Feast: A Folktale from the American South by Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss and partake in a grand...

Combine art, math, language arts, drama, and delicious Jell-o with a instructional activity based on the African folktale Anansi and the Tug o' War. Kids make predictions and discuss plot points of the story before joining in...

If friendship were a soup, what ingredients would be in it? As part of a study of Marcus Pfister's Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale, kids engage in a series of friendship-themed activities using materials contained in this richly...

Third graders write and illustrate a "pourqui" tale, which explains why or how an animal, plant, or natural object looks or acts the way it does. The tales also incorporate cultural values, or teaching lessons about caring for the earth.

The children's book Humphrey the Lost Whale tells an amazing tale of a community joining together for a common cause. Read this book with your class, making connections between the events in the story and personal experiences of young...

Practice organizing facts by creating a web with young learners. The teacher begins by introducing the concept of idea webs and modeling their use with three kinds of animals. Then students, using articles and informational texts, create...

Students read and discuss several Pourquoi tales--legends that explain why certain natural events occur. They complete a variety of activities surrounding each tale and then write their own Pourquoi tale.

In this whale terms word search, students locate 14 vocabulary terms having to do with whales. A word bank is provided. No indication whether or not the words can be found diagonally. This appears to be student-made.

Some problems are so big it takes an entire community to solve them. So was the case in the children's book Humphrey the Lost Whale: A True Story by Wendy Tokuda and Richard Hall. This primary grade lesson uses a class read-aloud of this...