After reading the book, students can learn observation skills by going out and looking for shadows and experimenting as the kids do in the book. Why are shadows hard to see when the sky is cloudy?

After reading some of these books, students can listen carefully, and write down the sounds they hear in their environment. Have older students use stopwatches and write down what they hear at each 30 second mark. Cars? Planes? Pencils? Voices? Scientists use these kinds of observations, called data, in their studies. Are certain sounds heard more often than others?

Explore life cycles, amphibians, desert creatures, rain, and the skill of listening by experiencing the suspense and lyrical language of this award-winning nonfiction book about a spadefoot toad in the Sonoran Desert.

Standards can be found here.

A tasty frog croaks. Delicious warthogs tromp by. Crocodile doesn’t move. She hasn’t eaten in weeks. But she only lies and listens. Crocodile has a secret hidden in the sand.