SPELL IT AMAZING!

WHAT A DELIGHTFUL SURPRISE! 

My book The Long, Long Journey: The Godwits Amazing Migration (Millbrook/Lerner) has been selected as one of 5 books that will be used to select First Grade Level spelling words for the 2018 Great Words, Great Works Scripps National Spelling Bee. What a great idea to have children master spelling words from the context of reading a book. 

Spell me H-O-N-O-R-E-D!

Every year godwits make a marathon migration from their summer home in Alaska to their winter home in New Zealand. This bird's story is very special to me. For almost fourteen years, I lived near Christchurch, New Zealand.  Along with other New Zealanders, I eagerly awaited the godwits arrival each year in September.

Here I am one day when the godwits arrived.
Check out the headline--"Godwits Are Back!"

That always signified winter was over and spring had arrived.  







So, when scientists tracking the birds reported they were nearing land, bird watchers rushed to the shores.  Then as soon as the first group of godwits were spotted, the news was broadcast on the radio and television.  The big cathedral in Christchurch also rang its bells.  Everywhere banners were raised and crowds rushed to the estuaries to cheer the arriving birds.


Now open the book and enjoy the story. Then have fun digging deeper with these discovery activities.

Check out the aerial view of Cape Avinof, Alaska (the godwits' starting place) by visiting this website.  

Next, do a Google search to find out how many miles it is between Alaska and New Zealand, the godwits' destination.  

Now, think about how you would travel from Kipnuk Airport, the closet airport to Cape Avinof, Alaska to Christchurch, New Zealand, one of godwits destinations in New Zealand.  

Check airline websites to answer the following questions:

• Can you fly non-stop, the way the godwits do?  If not, how many stops do you have to make along the way?
• How much will it cost you to fly between Alaska and New Zealand?
• The trip isn't free for the godwits, either.  However, what it costs the birds isn't money.  Read page 15 of The Long, Long Journey to find out what it costs these birds to make such a long flight.

So you learned what it costs the godwits is energy--what they get from eating and storing body fat.  Adult godwits have to double their weight between June and September.  Chicks have to both grow up and put on weight.

Just for fun, figure out what you would weigh if you doubled your weight to make this long trip.

Look at the godwit's long legs.
Such long legs help it wade in the mud to find food.

Now, try this activity to find out how the godwit uses its long beak to find and pick up food.

First, cut the top off an empty gallon-sized milk jug. Fill it nearly full of wet sand. Next, have an adult partner bury five pennies in the sand and smooth the top flat to hide the coins.  Then use chopsticks or two pencils held like chopsticks to probe the sand for the pennies. Once you find them, use the chopsticks to pluck the pennies out of the sand.

Take a close look at this picture of godwits in flight.  Look at how they hold their wings and head.

How do you think holding their head and wings this way helps them fly?

Check out what the godwits are doing with their long legs while they fly.  Why do you think the birds hold their legs in this position rather than just letting them hang down below their body.

Now, spend some time watching your local birds take off and fly. Draw a picture of one of these birds in flight.  Be sure to show how they stretch out their wings, how they hold their head, and what they do with their legs.

Just for fun, play this game to find out how godwits stay together in a flock even while flying through thick clouds and heavy rain.  

1. Ask six of your friends to stand in a circle around you. 
2. Close your eyes and ask them to make noises one at a time.  
3. Try pointing to each person as they sound off.  Have your friends score a point for you each time you point at the person making the sound.  
4. Now you know that being noisy helps birds keep track of each other and fly together.

The godwits take advantage of the fact that earth's northern and southern hemisphere's have summer at opposite times of the year. They always live where it's comfortably summer and there's plenty to eat year round.  To do that, though, means the godwits have to make a Long, Long Journey.

Now that you've explored these amazing birds read the book aloud again. This time it will be special--guaranteed! Children will feel like they're reading about good friends taking a very long journey. So have them pretend to be a godwit and write their own story about their Long, Long Journey.

GOOD GOLLY it's Autumn!

GOOD GOLLY it's Autumn!

I love this season! Whether you live where autumn brings lots of changes or only a few, it's still a great time for seasonal fun. So let's jump in and get started.

CHOMP!

There are thousands of kinds of apples. However, only the most popular are grown and harvested. Even that changes as new varieties emerge. Today, the top ten are most often listed as the following:
Pink Lady 
Honeycrisp
Fuji
Golden Delicious
McIntosh
Cox's Orange Pippin
Red Delicious
Gala
Jonasgold
Cortland



Collect samples of any three then compare. 
Do the apples look different? 

Check color. 
Shape. 
Size.

Now wash and slice. Then taste one sample. Rate it from 1 to 4 on crispness with 1 being the softest and 4 being the crispest.
Also rate it on sweetness with 1 being the least sweet and 4 being the sweetest.

Have a swig of water. Next, repeat these two tests with the second apple. Then with the third. 

Now create an advertisement for your favorite kind of apple. Tell why that's the best kind to buy, eat, and enjoy. Share something that will make people who've never tasted that kind of apple really want to try it.

If you can, share your findings on sweet taste with at least five friends and build a bar graph to compare the kinds of apples. 

It's estimated that each person in the United States eats about 50 apples a year. So while your investigating, you'll be on your way to eating your fair share of this year's crop.

RIDDLE: What kind of fruit do ghosts like?
Boo-berries. 







SHRINK A HEAD

In pioneering times, apples were carved and allowed to shrink and dry to make heads for dolls. You can carve an apple head to create a spooky shrunken head. Just follow the easy steps.

1.  First, peel the apple. Leave some peel on top for "hair". 

2.  Plan what you want the face to look like.

3.  Pour 4 cups of water into a bowl and stir in a teaspoon of salt.  Place the carved apple in this for about two hours.
That soften's the apple's flesh. 

4.  Next, use an unsharpened pencil or a popsicle stick to push in eye sockets. Also carve the shape for a nose and mouth.

5.  Push raisins into the eye sockets for eyes. You may also want to poke unpopped popcorn kernels into the mouth for teeth.

6.  Set your complete apple head on a plate. Check daily to see how the face changes as the apple dries.

The dried apple head usually won't mold. That's why people used to preserve food, like apples, for winter by drying it.  The lower water content helps prevent bacteria and mold growth.

Now, create a doll body for your apple head. It could be made out of poster board. It could be made out of paint stirring stick and have cloth clothes. Or something else. Whatever you make, make a list of the steps to follow. That way, others can make an apple head doll just the way you did.

RIDDLE: What's a vampire's favorite fruit?
Neck-tarines.














SNAP IT UP

In ancient times, Celts and Romans thought apples were magical fruit. So a popular tradition in Great Britain was apple-snapping. In those long ago times, a rope was tied to the center of a stick that was hung from the ceiling. Next, an apple was stuck on one end of the stick. A candle was attached to the other end. Once the candle was lit the stick was started twirling. Contestants then tried to snatch the apple without getting burned. This was a very dangerous game. Later, it was turned into bobbing for apples.

To bob for apples, fill a large plastic storage tub or child's plastic wading pool nearly full of water. Wash the apples--one for each contestant. Set these afloat. To play each person, in turn, bends over the tub with their hands behind their back. Have someone time each person working to snatch an apple in their teeth. The fastest snatcher wins. Only each person wins a tasty apple snack. 

Write a short story about a bobbing-for-apples contest.

RIDDLE: What kind of horses do ghosts ride?
Nightmares.












MORE FUN!

You're not done yet.

Twist and Shout--Find an apple with a stem. Twist it around and around saying a letter of the alphabet with each complete turn. How many letter can you say before the stem separates?

Cut and Print--Apples make great print blocks. Cut a nice firm apple in half. Use a sturdy plastic knife or popsicle stick to cut away parts of flesh. Pour tempera or finger paint on a sturdy paper plate. Touch the cut apple to this to coat. Then press firmly on paper. Repeat to "stamp" your design all over the paper. If you want more than one color, wash off the apple and pat dry with a paper towel. Then keep on stamping with a new color of paint.

Johnny Did It--Look up Johnny Appleseed on-line. Then make up a short play about his real life (at least what people think may be real). Or let children work together to make up a short play about something that Johnny Appleseed could have done--maybe even in your home town. Then invite visitors to see them act out this play.

EYE SPY WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?!

The newest member of the 

WHAT IF YOU HAD?! family is here!

THIS SERIES IS NOW AVAILABLE IN LIBRARY BINDING AS WELL AS PAPERBACK

I've been delighted to read Tweets and Face Book posts sharing how the books in this series are going beyond being fun informational texts. I'm hearing from teachers, librarians and media specialists that the WHAT IF YOU HAD?! books are favorite mentoring text for writing experiences. 

I LOVE knowing these books are inspiring children to write and be creative! 

Jen Rusin's class at Homestead Elementary in Aurora, Illinois

sharing WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EARS?! 

So I thought I'd jump in and share some ways to let WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?! launch young writers. Here goes...

FAVORITE EYES

I have a favorite animal in each and every WHAT IF YOU HAD?! book. And my very favorite animal eyes are found on pages 14 through 15. Yes, I have my reasons why this animal's eyes especially appeal to me. It includes both the real facts about those eyes and the way Howard McWilliam, my super illustrator, brought my imagined use of those eyes to life with his art.

So now your challenge is to find your very favorite animal eyes in this book.  Write a convincing argument for why those animal eyes are truly the coolest in WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?! And why you could enjoy claiming them as your own.





You might also want to write about which animal eyes you'd least like to have of all the examples in WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?!

Teachers: Why not wrap this activity up by building a class bar graph for favorite animal eyes.  You could color in bars on paper. Or have everyone line up and physically be part of a favorite animal eye graph. 

I'd love to see your student-graph photos!

By the way... Here's a peek at an early stage of the book when the illustration is still a sketch. At this stage, I'm checking to be sure it's both fun and scientifically correct.




BLINK AND SWITCH



What if one kind of animal could claim another animal's 
eyes?! 


Imagine a dragonfly having colossal squid eyes? How might that help it hunt insects? How might having colossal squid eyes cause problems for a dragonfly?

Now imagine a tarsier having dragonfly eyes? How might that help it be an even better insect hunter? How might having dragonfly eyes cause problems for a tarsier?








Are there any animal eyes in WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?! that might be even better for the llama than its very own eyes? Suggest an animal eye switch. Then come up with three reasons to make a strong case for that switch.

OUT TAKES

I start working on every book by brainstorming a long list of animal possibilities to include. Then, as I research, I weed out the maybes to come up with the very best candidates--ones that are both interesting, if possible haven't appeared in other books, and that readers will have fun imagining having themselves. 

In WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?! there were three animals that stayed in the running right up to the final cut. 

Here are the three Eye Runner Ups:

Jumping Spider

Hippopotamus

Giant Panda

Read books and search on-line to find out more about each of these "Eye Runner Ups". Then pick one and create your own two-page spread for your choice. 

On the lefthand page, you'll need to briefly tell about that animal's eyes and what makes them special. Be sure to include a FACT. That's one extra bit of information about a way that animal's eyes are just right for it. 

On the righthand page, come up with a way it would be fun for you to have that animal's eyes. For extra fun, add a drawing of yourself doing whatever you imagined possible thanks to having that animal's eyes.


EYE HAD AN ADVENTURE!

It's story time! Children can either pick their own animal from WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?! or pick the name of one of those animals from slips of paper in a hat.

The challenge is to imagine waking up one day and having that animal's eyes for one whole day. 

What adventure did you have? 

Did your animal eyes  help you solve a mystery? 

Did they help you be a hero? 

Did those animal eyes cause you any problems?

Write your story in three short paragraphs: 
1. One to launch what happens. 
2. One for the action in the middle.
3. One for the conclusion. 

Of course, illustrations are a nice touch. 

Teachers: Be sure to allow time for young writers to read their stories aloud. After all, WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?! is meant to be read aloud so everyone can share the fun. These EYE HAD AN ADVENTURE stories are best shared read aloud too.

GOOD NEWS!! 

All of the books in the WHAT IF YOU HAD?! Series--even ANIMAL EYES--are now available in Library Binding. So they're ready to be read, and read, and read, and read, and READ....

TEN THINGS TO DO THIS SUMMER!

Okay, it's summer! So here are ten things to enjoy while it's hot, sunny and being outdoors is fun....

1.  Make something out of mud. Even better do it after it's rained. What is that mud like? How is different from dry dirt? Is there one way it's still the same? 

And then read Mud by Mary Lyn Ray with illustrations by Lauren Stringer.

2. Play flashlight tag in the dark. 

3. Go on a shadow hunt to find the following shadows. But take an adult along because grown-ups need to have fun too:

a. Find a shadow with a bright hole in it.

b. Find the biggest shadow you can. Figure out what made it.

c. Find the littlest shadow you can. Figure out what made it.  

And then Read Flashlight Night by Matt Forrest Esenwine and illustrations by Fred Koehler.

4. Fly a kite. But make one first. Here are sites with easy how-to instructions.

Easy Paper Kite

Kites For Everyone

How To Build Kites

And read The Emperor's Kit by Jane Yolen with illustrations by Ed Young

5. Make a FOOT painting. Sure, you've probably done fingerprinting. But have you ever painted with your feet? It will really let you STEP UP as an artist. Try mixing your own paints first. Here's some how-to sites to help you. 

 

How To Make Your Own Fingerpaint

Homemade Edible Fingerpaint

Homemade Fingerpaint

And read What If You Had Animal Feet?! by ME Sandra Markle with illustrations by Howard McWilliam.

6. Look at the world through a magnifying glass. Especially something you never thought to look at closely before. See anything that surprised you?  

7. Put on a puppet show with puppets you make yourself. Here's some sites with ideas to help you do just that.

Puppet Craft for Kids

How To Make Puppets

How To Design Hand Puppets

8. Learn one constellation you didn't know in the night sky. Find out what story people used to tell about it. Then make up a new story yourself.

Mmy favorite constellation is ORION. And here's a couple of sites with star stories, including ones about Orion.

Windows To The Universe

SkyServer

And read Zoo in the Sky: A Book of Animal Constellations by Jacqueline Mitton

Hope you have fun with these activities. And to share an adventure that happened one summer, Read Gasparilla's Gold by ME Sandra Markle :-)! Of course, any time you read one of my books it's like I'm right there sharing it with you.

HAPPY SUMMER!

THE STORY BEHIND THIRSTY, THIRSTY ELEPHANTS

So I’ll share a little known secret about me—I have a thing for elephants.

It goes back to my childhood, which you might find quirky if you knew I grew up in Fostoria, a small town in the middle of miles and miles of northern Ohio farmland. HOWEVER, when I was about ten years old Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus came to my hometown for one day.

AND they put up their tents in the field directly across the street from my house.

That meant the elephants marched from the train station past my house and spent the whole day, well from my point of view, visiting me. I definitely spent the day with them. I was intrigued.

Fast forward to the early days of my writing career. I was offered the opportunity to spend three days visiting Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus on tour while I worked on an article about world famous animal trainer Gunther Gebel Williams. Of course, I politely said, “YES!”

Besides his big cats, Guther’s animal troupe included elephants. I will never forget walking alongside him as he checked over and cared for his elephants. It was my first chance to see elephants up-close. And I learned they were gentle giants, clearly intelligent, constantly curious and genuinely elegant. I was impressed.

After that, I read all I could about elephants. I visited zoo elephants and nature park elephants. And along the way of my life’s journey, I became a mother with young children and a children’s nonfiction book author.

So, I shared my interest in elephants with my children and tucked elephants into my books wherever I could to share them with young readers. 

Although there are more examples, elephants make a guest appearance in Math Mini-Mysteries (Atheneum, 1993), which interestingly was my last all black and white children’s nonfiction book before publishers FINALLY became convinced children’s nonfiction could be full color. Elephants also slipped into Animals Marco Polo Saw (Chronicle Books, 2009) and became the one animal that makes repeated featured appearances in my WHAT IF YOU HAD?! Series (Scholastic).  

And thanks to the Scholastic books I had an opportunity to visit Baby Mike, a six-month old Asian elephant.

He made sweet baby elephant noises. And was intriguingly working on conquering using his trunk. When he reached out and wrapped his soft, wrinkly little trunk around my hand I was thrilled—that is right up until I discovered he was working on removing my ring and doing a good job of it. 

But by now my relationship with elephants had become truly personal. I was enthralled.

Fast forward to my being a grandmother because, well, time does pass. And while I’d written over two hundred books for children, I was still on the lookout for a new elephant story to share. Then I found it. Somewhere in the vast piles of research I do all the time there was a fascinating story about a herd of elephants that totally survived when other herds suffered serious losses during the worst drought to hit Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park in nearly twenty-five years. With some more digging, I tracked down Dr. Charles Foley who was in Tanzania studying the Tarangire’s elephant herds. I remember listening intently during our Skype visits as he shared the details of that surviving elephant herd’s story with me.

I was especially interested because the herd had a hero--the elderly herd leader named Big Mama. She was known to be at least thirty years old—possibly older—and was a grandmother. The drought was extremely hard on all the elephants in the Park but was hardest on the little calves because elephants need to drink water daily. Can’t go more than two days without a drink. Amazingly, when most of the reliable water sources in the Tarangire dried up, Big Mama led her herd out of the Park to another water source. Dr. Foley is certain that wasn’t chance. He believes Big Mama is old enough to have been a young elephant during the last terrible drought. And he’s convinced she led her herd to a water source she remembered from that past drought.

What a great story! What an amazing elephant! I knew I had to share Big Mama’s story with children. Happily, Charlesbridge agreed and I wrote it, pouring in the sights and the sounds of Big Mama and her herd as they struggled during the drought, searched for water—found a little wherever they could—and kept plodding on. Grandma elephant (Big Mama) led them on and on with determination, persistence, caring and courage. And, at last, brought her herd to WATER.

It was nearly two years after I first discovered the story in 2012 and began to dig into it that my research became Thirsty, Thirsty Elephants.

And as is often the case in illustrated books, producing the finished art required another two years. But I believe you’ll agree the pictures are gorgeous, marrying with the unfolding story to bring it fully to life.

Finally, on April 4, 2017, Thirsty, Thirsty Elephants became available for young readers. But there was a breath-holding moment just before the book went to press, I needed to update the Author’s Note about Big Mama. Because of her age, I was nervous as I reached out to Dr. Foley again to catch up and to ask about the elephant who had become dear to my heart. To my great joy, Dr. Foley assured me Big Mama was still alive and doing well. In fact, under her leadership her herd had grown to be forty elephants strong—one of the largest herds in Tanzania’s Tarangire Park.

I was delighted!

Are there more elephants to feature in my books? Are there more elephant stories to tell? I’m absolutely sure of it.

But--I love this one!