Many elementary
classrooms do a unit about rain forests, and it’s a wonderful way to combine
science and language arts.
Here are five fantastic read alouds that look at the topic
through a variety of lenses—fiction, nonfiction, and informational fiction;
expository and narrative; biography and cumulative text. There’s something to
engage every child.
The
Leaf Detective: How Margaret Lowman Uncovered Secrets in the Rainforest by Heather Lang and Jana Christy
Fourteen Monkeys: A Rain Forest Rhyme by
Melissa Stewart and Steve Jenkins
Over and Under the Rainforest by Kate
Messner and Christopher Silas Neal
The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon
Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry
Here Is the Tropical Rain Forest by
Madeleine Dunphy and Michael Rothman
To round out the instruction, here are seven more titles that
include two experiential, you-are-there texts (one tropical, one temperate); a
counting book; a browsable book; a traditional survey book; and more. Using
these finely-crafted titles as a set supports a broad range of content-area learning
opportunities, and student engagement will be off the charts!
Tree of Wonder: The Many Marvelous Lives of a Rainforest
Tree by Kate Messner and Simona Mulazzani
Eyewitness: The Amazon by DK
Rain, Rain, Rain Forest by
Brenda Z. Guiberson and Steve Jenkins
A Walk in the Rain Forest by
Rebecca l. Johnson
No Monkeys, No Chocolate by
Melissa Stewart, Allen Young, and Nicole Wong
Tropical Rainforests by
Seymour Simon
In the Rainforest by Kate
Duke
While you can enrich your current curriculum by incorporating
some or all of these books, you can also create a powerful new lesson using the
tools and techniques in Text Sets in Action: Pathways Through Content Area
Literacy by Mary Ann Cappiello and Erika Thulin Dawes. Packed with
innovative real-world classroom experiences that make every precious minute of
instructional time count, this resource will guide you in meeting the standards
and engaging young minds.
To learn more about the importance of integrating language arts and
content-area instruction, check
out this video by leading educational researcher Nell Duke.
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