The Very Quiet Cricket

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Use cardboard circles or pizza boards to make life cycles for each of the insects selected by children to research. Then, I showed Troy the parts of the body and had him count the legs. He of course knew the head, but the thorax (middle section) and abdomen (end) were new to him. I’m sure it went a little over his head, but I wanted to introduce this concept to him. I’m sure his grandpa will be proud of him for learning this!!

A ladybug is unwilling to share the aphids on a leaf and so flies off to challenge bigger and bigger animals to a fight. Look at some of the related books below to see some of the techniques and media illustrators use to create insects. Use some of them to create your own pictures.Place the above circles on a large wall or bulletin board. Let children choose lengths of colored yarn or ribbon and connect any insects where they can state the reasons for similarity: habitat, habits, color, shape, noise, food, etc. Carle's illustrations, as usual, are bright and beautiful and the story is very simple to read. It's no wonder Eric Carle's books are so cherished by young children. A grandfather starts releasing bees so that he and his granddaughter can follow them to the bee tree. They are soon joined by a whole line of followers. Play the What-If game about the ideas in this book in which children speculate on as many consequences of each "What-if" as possible. For instance, the first what-if might be "What if all insects became twice as big as they are now?" Consequences might be: they'd need twice as much food so we might loose more crops. It would hurt more if they bit or stung us. The noise they make could become a nuisance. Birds who eat insects would need to eat fewer insects to fill up. The word use is interesting and dramatic and Carle’s inclusion of real sound in a book that has been discussing sound throughout the book expands our concept of what a picture book can and should be. Eric Carle has said that each of his "very" books has a theme and that this one is about love and the search for it.

Free Teacher's Guides: A listing of all our teacher's guides. Picture Books, Nonfiction and Fiction. Make a chart of the information about insects found in this book. Enter the name, descriptive words and sound the insect makes. The fun story has a few repeating words that will have your children reading along with you in no time. Nature/Science This post was originally a guest post by Jen from Large Family Frugal Living. It has since been updated to add new resources and remove broken links.Have an insect sound contest where students use instruments, found materials, body parts and voices to imitate insect sounds. Evaluation of Literary Elements: I think that the repetitive text is very important because it helps children remember it and they can learn a lot from that. In addition, the big, colorful images keeps the children engages throughout the book. The pictures very much tell you that thesis an Eric Carle book and the writing follows the same paths as his other books. This is probably the best known of Carle’s work. In it a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Read more about this book. How I could use this book in a classroom: I would use this book for students to tke time to reflect on what they have learned throughout the year in my classroom. After reading this book I would ask them something that they can do now that they could not do at the beginning of the year or when they were younger. I think I could also use this book to talk about what it means to be quiet an loud. After that we could talk about times when we need to be quiet and then practice classroom and school etiquette.

This is a wonderful source book for information about Eric Carle and his work. Carle includes a delightful autobiography amply illustrated with photographs and sketches, but there is much more in the book. An editor relates her experiences with Carle. There's a section about the way he creates his work and writings by Carle and some of his colleagues. Best of all, the book is a compendium of his artwork. Typical of Carle’s style, the language is simple, with rhythm, repetition, and alliteration to delight young listeners. Painted collage illustrations are lavish and expressive.”– School Library Journal Typical of Carle's style, the language is simple, with rhythm, repetition, and alliteration to delight young listeners. Painted collage illustrations are lavish and expressive."-- School Library Journal An orchestra performance is nearly spoiled by a bee. The sound of the bee is highlighted in the story. Comments/observations: This books reading level is kindergarten through third grade. I also found that the theme of this book is confidence and being yourself. My emotional readers response to this book was I liked the book and its illustrations and I could see myself putting this book in my own classroom library.Eric Carle’s classic story of finding your “voice” is newly joining the premier reader line, Step into Reading! Make a list of the sentences in this book that Mr. Carle uses to talk about other insects. Notice the verbs he uses to tell how the insects moved. Try substituting other words for them. Which sentences do you like best?