Also, on April 18, 2010, I answered questions about the book, as well.

Ah, the halls were festooned with beautiful bumblebees and flowers. A shiny paper mirror said “Look here to see the author.” How wonderful for each student to see a young author in themselves.  We had some of the first art celebration of He’s a Howler: a howler paper quilt. Beautiful!

Many of the students were studying geography. They had done drawings and short writing pieces about the features of continents to go with my continent books.

One classroom did a hilarious counting riff on One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab. They did counting by eyes.

One class analyzed and classified the information in Bumblebee Queen.

Another class created new versions of the fish chant but with ocean fish. They created fish cutouts, wrote reports about features and behavior. Then they drew a fanciful sea/town scene where the fish swam. It was nonfiction with a visual fiction twist, in the spirit of Trout, Trout, Trout. Hooray!

One of my favorites was the bird poetry written by the fourth graders. Using Vulture View as a model, the teacher had created a form with key words and phrases from Vulture View. Students each drew a bird species and filled in what that bird would or would not eat and how it would move. Brilliant.

A highlight of my visit was two small sessions with young authors and illustrators. I will never forget my discussions with them! I hope that Reading Rainbow Book entry goes well.

This is a fine school with energetic educators and students that are excited to learn. The students were well prepared for my visit and worked well together in the assembly setting. The faculty welcomed me. Students and staff have much to be proud of; together they have made an environment for learning. As an author, it was a pleasure to visit.

Thank you, librarian Ms. Brown, for bringing me in to share this joyful place with you.

http://www.unitedthroughreading.org/about/greattransitionalbooks_justthefacts.php

This quote is from Chrissy Larson, the teacher Balsam of the Nuts about Nature Preschool run by the   Portland Environmental Education Department. She wrote to me this week. Below are some photos she took of her activities.1) The teachers and kids create some appropriately gooey looking “carrion”

2) The kids make vulture shapes and attach them to paper airplanes.

3) They practice soaring like vultures. Notice the proper vulture wing posture of the kids in the photo! (See first photo.)

See the lovely Geisel Honor Sticker?

This relatively new award is named after Dr. Seuss and it honors both the text and illustrations of books geared for children beginning to read. I am thrilled and so happy for my work to be paired with the great illustrations done by Steve Jenkins. I attended the ALA national conference in Anaheim to accept the Honor Award.  

I also enjoyed seeing many of you at my sessions at the International Reading Association national conference in Atlanta in May, where I gave a talk as a featured author. Also, I spoke at the Illinois Reading Association conference in March and visited schools all over the place–from IN to OH to SC.

NSTA just recommended my new book, TROUT ARE MADE OF TREES, published by Charlesbridge. I love this book and I hope you will, too. Don’t forget the CONTEST for TROUT ARE MADE OF TREES.

Trout Are Made of Trees

Classrooms of students grades K-3 are encouraged to enter their environmental projects and art to compete for prizes, including a free school visit from me! The contest is open to classrooms all over the U.S. Charlesbridge will pay my travel expenses and I am donating the visit. So I will be seeing some of you in 2009! Full information on the contest can be found here:  CONTEST

Vulture View

English/Language Arts Standards

Kindergarten

K.1.1 Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.

K.1.2 Follow words from left to right and from top to bottom on the printed page.

K.1.3 Understand that printed materials provide information.

K.1.4 Recognize that sentences in print are made up of separate words.

K.1.5 Distinguish letters from words.

K.1.6 Recognize and name all capital and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

K.1.22 Listen to stories read aloud and use the vocabulary in those stories in oral language.

K.2.1 Locate the title and the name of the author of a book.

K.2.2 Use pictures and context to aid comprehension and to draw conclusions or make predictions about story content.

Grade 1

1.1.1 Match oral words to printed words.

1.1.2 Identify letters, words, and sentences.

1.1.3 Recognize that sentences start with capital letters and end with punctuation, such as periods, question marks, and exclamation points.

1.2.1 Identify the title, author, illustrator, and table of contents of a reading selection.

1.2.3 Respond to who, what, when, where, why, and how questions and recognize the main idea of what is read.

1.2.7 Relate prior knowledge to what is read.

1.6.6 Correctly use periods (I am five.), exclamation points (Help!), and question marks (How old are you?) at the end of sentences.

Grade 2

2.2.2 State the purpose for reading.

2.2.3 Use knowledge of the author’s purpose(s) to comprehend informational text.

2.2.4 Ask and respond to questions (when, who, where, why, what if, how) to aid comprehension about important elements of informational texts.

2.2.5 Restate facts and details or summarize the main idea in the text to clarify and organize ideas.

Grade 3

3.2.2 Ask questions and support answers by connecting prior knowledge with literal information from the text.

Example: When reading informational materials about science topics or social science subjects, compare what is read to background knowledge about the subject.

3.2.3 Show understanding by identifying answers in the text.

Example: After generating a question about information in a text, skim and scan the remaining text to find the answer to the question.

3.2.4 Recall major points in the text and make and revise predictions about what is read.

3.2.5 Distinguish the main idea and supporting details in expository (informational) text.

3.3.1 Recognize different common genres (types) of literature, such as poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction.

Grade 4

4.2.1 Use the organization of informational text to strengthen comprehension.

Science Standards:

Kindergarten

K.1.1 Raise questions about the natural world.

K.2.2 Draw pictures and write words to describe objects and experiences.

K.4.1 Give examples of plants and animals.

K.4.2 Observe plants and animals, describing how they are alike and how they are different in the way they look and in the things they do.

Grade 1

1.1.1 Observe, describe, draw, and sort objects carefully to learn about them.

1.1.2 Investigate and make observations to seek answers to questions about the world, such as “In what ways do animals move?”

1.1.3 Recognize that and demonstrate how people can learn much about plants and animals by observing them closely over a period of time. Recognize also that care must be taken to know the needs of living things and how to provide for them.

1.2.7 Write brief informational descriptions of a real object, person, place, or event using information from observations.

1.3.4 Investigate by observing and then describe how things move in many different ways, such as straight, zigzag, round-and-round, and back-and-forth.

1.4.3 Observe and explain that animals eat plants or other animals for food.

Grade 2

2.1.3 Describe, both in writing and verbally, objects as accurately as possible and compare observations with those of other people.

2.1.4 Make new observations when there is disagreement among initial observations.

2.2.5 Draw pictures and write brief descriptions that correctly portray key features of an object.

2.3.1 Investigate by observing and then describe that some events in nature have a repeating pattern, such as seasons, day and night, and migrations.

2.3.4 Investigate by observing and then describe how animals and plants sometimes cause changes in their surroundings.

2.4.1 Observe and identify different external features of plants and animals and describe how these features help them live in different environments.

2.4.2 Observe that and describe how animals may use plants, or even other animals, for shelter and nesting.

2.4.3 Observe and explain that plants and animals both need to take in water, animals need to take in food, and plants need light.

2.4.4 Recognize and explain that living things are found almost everywhere in the world and that there are somewhat different kinds in different places.

2.6.3 Describe that things can change in different ways, such as in size, weight, color, age, and movement. Investigate that some small changes can be detected by taking measurements.

Grade 3

3.1.2 Participate in different types of guided scientific investigations, such as observing objects and events and collecting specimens for analysis.

3.2.3 Keep a notebook that describes observations and is understandable weeks or months later.

3.2.6 Make sketches and write descriptions to aid in explaining procedures or ideas.

3.2.7 Ask “How do you know?” in appropriate situations and attempt reasonable answers when others ask the same question.

3.5.5 Explain that one way to make sense of something is to think of how it relates to something more familiar.

Grade 4

4.2.5 Write descriptions of investigations, using observations and other evidence as support for explanations.

Understanding Standards

In the case of English/Language Arts, the National Standards consist of 12 standards. Each state takes those twelve standards and develops their own objectives to indicate how they intend for those standards to be taught. And then each school district takes their state’s standards and sometimes defines them even slightly more or determines in which order those standards and objectives will be taught. 

Therefore, the first number is the grade level, the second number is the national standard and the third number is the state objective. For example: 5.1.3 stands for 5th Grade, National Standard #1, and the state’s 3rd objective.

These are keyed to national standards and Indiana’s standards. As you can see from the explanation above, it should be simple to plug in your state’s standards, as needed.  

Here is a website where the National Standards are listed.

http://www.education-world.com/standards/national/index.shtml

This book is about vultures. But did you notice it was about something else? Physics. It told us a little bit about air. The sun warmed the air. Now, warming air goes where?

(Up, up!)

Cooling air goes where?

(Down, down!)

Now let’s learn about another physical part of our world; dust. Have you ever thought about dust? Let’s read…

Activities are available in the activities section. 

Other books to pair with these include:

Shadows, which is out of print but available in many libraries and used book stores.

Also, look for these physical science picture books by author Lola Schaefer:

This is the Rain

An Island Grows

What’s Up, What’s Down

Turkey Vulture Society
The Peregrine Fund
Wikipedia Entry
Bird Info site
Kern River Valley Turkey Vulture Festival (CA)
National Geo News Article 2001 About Flourishing T.V. Population
East Coast Vulture Festival, Wenonah, NJ

I have had plenty of interactions with turkey vultures. When I was in high school I worked at Pete Conroy’s raptor rehabilitation center at Furman University in Greenville, SC. We took care of a young, rather clueless turkey vulture. I learned then just how shy and retiring these birds are in comparison with hawks and owls. I also learned how to gather roadkill. Yes, whenever I saw a dead opossum, I would pull my little blue King Cab to the side of the road and go pick up the carcass. This involved grabbing its long pinkish tail and swinging the thing into the back of the cab. This was dinner for the turkey vulture. When you are taking care of animals, you do whatever is necessary. Actually, it’s not a messy job, at all, thanks to that sturdy opossum tail.

Jeff and I have also seen turkey vultures migrating through Panama. I will try to post some photos of those turkey vulture kettles another day. We saw them swirling by the hundreds and thousands.

Now when I see turkey vultures I think of the words of the book. I think of the lovely illustrations by Steve Jenkins. Wait until you see the vulture faces! Why, they are positively attractive! It is amazing what art and some cut paper can do.