CFE Levels First and Second (age 6-11)

Resource by Scottish Book Trust

Christiane DorionlearningresourcesCreative activities inspiredby How the World Beganand How Animals Live

About these resourcesThese resources are inspired by Christiane Dorion’s wonderful illustratedbooks How The World Began and How Animals Live. The books can be agreat jumping off point to these activities, but you don’t need to own thebooks to do the activities.

The activities cover a wide range of curricular areas and are designed tobe fun and creative, giving your pupils the opportunity to explore differenttopics using a variety of active learning approaches.

About Christiane DorionChristiane Dorion is a children’s author and a tireless advocate forenvironmental issues. She was born in Quebec City in Canada andstudied geography at university before completing a Masters in Education.In 1987 she came to live in the UK to complete a PhD in environmentaleducation, and was a key contributor to the guidelines for environmentaleducation in the National Curriculum. She also ran the WWF’s educationprogramme for eight years. She now works with Forum for the Future, anorganisation devoted to sustainable development.

Christiane always wanted to be a children’s writer and began writing in2002. Her beautifully illustrated pop-up books are a fascinatingintroduction to our world and the creatures in it for young children. In 2011,How the World Works won the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize.

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How the World Began

Planets poetry Eng 2-31a

It can be difficult for children to understand that other planets are verydifferent from our own. However, these wonderful close up images fromthe Telegraph website can give them a much better idea of what theplanets in our solar system look like: http://bit.ly/SpaceGallery

Ask pupils to compose a poem which makes use of metaphors todescribe each planet. How would they describe each planet, and whatcan they compare each planet to? They can use the images in Appendix 1for reference. For instance:

Jupiter is a messy child’s bedroom, colours swirling everywhere,Mercury is an empty car park, grey as far as the eye can see...

Building and design challenges Tch 1-12a, Tch 2-12a

The book shows ancient civilisations like the Sumerians developing basictools and buildings. To help pupils understand what it must have been liketo go through the trial and error process of designing tools and structures,you can get them taking part in some design challenges.

The ‘Inspiration from Nature’ activity on this page introduces pupils to biomimicry, the process of taking inspiration from natural processes to comeup with a design solution to meet human needs: www.made2bmadeagain.org/teachers_activities.php. You can find brilliant videos to support thisactivity here: www.made2bmadeagain.org/creatures_cwdtd

Try this one on the Scholastic website, where pupils are given the task ofbuilding a load-bearing bridge with only a few basic materials:www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2013/09/building-teamwork-and-bridges-stem-icebreaker

This simple bridge building activity is again focused on the concept ofimproving an initial design: http://stem-works.com/external/activity/572

This design challenge from the Science Museum tasks pupils with building atower from very simple materials: www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/educators/teaching_resources/activities/spaghetti_challenge.aspx

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Wishes for the Earth Exa 2-02a, Scn 2-20a

Ask your pupils to produce a mural of planet Earth on your classroom wall.Ask them to annotate the mural with their wishes for the future of theplanet. You could take inspiration from this design:http://mrstsfirstgradeclass-jill.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/earth-mural.html

Producing a mural is a good opportunity to get the children thinking aboutthe suitability of different materials for such a project. You could ask themto think of different ways to produce the mural. They’ll need to produce allthe continents and seas, so what is the best way to do this? Would theyuse watercolours, spray paints, acrylics or pastels? Or would they maketheir mural out of fabrics?

Prompt them with ideas for their wishes. Is there an endangered species ofanimal they’d like to see protected? Is there something they want for theirlocal community, like a park or cycle lanes? What problems would theylike to see fixed? Would they like to see some new inventions to tackleproblems in the world?

You could start a class blog and post photos of your earth mural to sharewith the world. If you want to make sure your pupils get an audience fortheir blog, try quadblogging – find out more here:http://quadblogging.com/. You could ask other pupils from around theworld to tell your class their wishes for the earth!

Make your own pop up books about inventions Lit 2-14a, Lit 2-25a

How the World Began talks about inventions that defined the world as weknow it today. You could ask your pupils to come up with a class list of thetop ten inventions that have impacted their lives, and then produce a popup book showing how some of these inventions worked. In this blog, aprimary school class explain how they designed their own pop up books –these ones are on the topic of space, but the idea can easily be modifiedto show inventions at work: scottishbooktrust.com/blog/teachers-librarians/2014/04/making-space-themed-pop-up-books

Give your pupils a genuine audience for the book by asking them to sharetheir books with younger pupils and getting them to explain the conceptsin the book to the younger children, using their pop ups as a visual aid!

Stargazing Scn 2-06a

Introduce your pupils to stars with the following resources:

l This page explains star formation and the life cycle of a star:http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/universe_level1/stars.html

l This presentation shows pupils how a star is different from a planet:www.tes.com/teaching-resource/the-difference-between-stars-and-planets-6111812

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l This resource can introduce your pupils to what a star is, and alsoincludes a presentation on constellations: www.tes.com/teaching-resource/the-solar-system-6080815

l To help pupils understand how far stars are away from us, you canuse this fascinating and beautiful short film. Although it makes nomention of stars besides the sun, it’s a clear demonstration of how farapart the planets are in our own solar system: imagine then that starsare even further away! www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR3Igc3Rhfg

To help your pupils consolidate all they have learned about stars, youcould try the following activities:

l Create a presentation about the life of a star. They can do this indifferent ways. They can create a PowerPoint or stop motionanimation; alternatively, they could create a tableau. A tableau is aseries of photographs telling a story in stages. Your pupils couldrepresent the life cycle of a star by arranging themselves in differentpositions for each photograph: for example, they could representgases coming together to form a star by huddling together.

l Paint the life stages of a star. You could ask different groups of pupilsto paint different stages of the life cycle of a star, and bring themtogether to display on the wall. Alternatively, you could ask pupils topaint some constellations.

l Create a scale model of the solar system. You can find a fun way todo this with toilet paper in the BBC resource mentioned earlier!

After this, your pupils might be keen to see the night sky and record whatthey see! You can find a fantastic pack with lots of activities, some ofwhich can be done inside, at the BBC website:http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/tv/stargazinglive/sgl_eventpack_with_links2013.pdf

This sheet can also help guide your pupils as they search forconstellations in the night sky:http://www.astrosociety.org/edu/family/materials/constellationdetective.pdf

Investigating gravity for young children Scn 1-07a

To introduce young pupils to the idea of gravity and air resistance, youcould have a look at this excellent activity:www.sciencekids.co.nz/projects/eggdrop.html

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How Animals Live

Match animals to their habitats Scn 1-01a

The book describes the different animals which live in different kinds ofhabitats across the world. For very young children, this activity on the TESwebsite (you’ll need to create a free TES login) is a great way to reinforcelearning about animals and habitats: www.tes.com/teaching-resource/habitats-game-6167313

For slightly older or higher ability pupils, you can set them the matchingtask in Appendix 2, where they match animals to habitats based on clues.

This task can make a nice precursor to the next activity on evolution.

Accessible Evolution Lit 2-14a, Lit 2-25a

Tell your pupils that their task is to write a guide to evolution for youngerpupils which will make the concept accessible.

First, they’ll need to learn all about evolution. Try the following activities:

l Ask your pupils what features of the human body they would findmost useful to change or enhance in some way. Would they choose tobe faster? Taller? Would they choose to enhance any one of theirsenses? Ask them to explain the reasons for their choices.

l Explain that nature works in this way. A process called natural selectionmeans that animals develop features which help them adapt to theirenvironments. The following Discovery Channel video explains this inthe case of elephants: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qceHwgTMyKI

l Show the pupils the following animals, and ask them why they thinkthey have the features that they do: cheetah (speed), giraffes,chameleons, rhinos and beavers.

l Natural selection means that the animals best suited to theirenvironment survive and evolve, and the ones less suited becomeextinct. This page explains a little bit more:http://sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Saving-Reptiles-and-Amphibians/Science-Ideas-and-Concepts/Extinction

l You can have fun getting your pupils to guess the reasons these birdshave their distinctive beaks! www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/15-birds-with-unbelievable-beaks

Next, they need to be very clear about the information they want to sharewith younger pupils about each animal. Sometimes the simplest way to dothis is to write down five headings: What, Where, When, Why and How. Askpupils to come up with questions based on these headings. For instance,what features does an elephant have, where does it live, when did it firstappear on Earth and when did it begin to change, why are its featuresuseful, and how do they work?

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Next, they’ll need to decide what kind of text they want to produce. If theywant to produce a leaflet, what kind of features would make it moreaccessible and interesting for younger children? The same goes forposters, presentations, infographics, etc.

Here are some videos and pages to help your pupils’ research:

l Why do elephants have trunks? A video from the BBC:www.bbc.co.uk/education/clips/zf7w2hv

l Another video from the BBC, this time about giraffes:www.bbc.co.uk/education/clips/z4ys34j

l This short video explains what beavers use their teeth for:www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJjaQExOPPY

l This video explains some of the features chameleons use to protectthemselves: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHxPJj6xRiw

l This page explains how the rhinoceros has evolved over time:www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150518-the-epic-history-of-rhinos

A simpler evolution activity – write a safari guide

If you want to consolidate the learning about evolution in a quicker way,you could ask pupils to write a guide for someone going on safari who islikely to see the animals you’ve been discussing. The guide would tellreaders about the animals, their habitats and the features that help themthrive.

You’ll obviously need to focus on African animals, so some goodcontenders would be the cheetah, elephant, giraffe, hippo, rhino andchameleon.

Create your own zoo LIT 1-09a, LIT 1-14a, LIT 1-28a, Exa 1-03a

For younger pupils, the book can open up great opportunities for research,numeracy, role play and parental involvement. Why not get your pupils toopen up their own zoo?

Explain to the pupils that their first task is to find out all about the animalsin a zoo. What do they eat, where do they come from and what are theirbabies called? What other interesting facts can your pupils find out? Asidefrom How Animals Live, National Geographic’s Kids website is a greatplace for you to find out some interesting facts to pass on to your pupils:http://ngkids.co.uk/animals

Help your pupils come up with their own fun facts. For instance, a tiger canweigh up to 363 kg and measure up to 3.3m, so how does this compare toother animals? How many cats would need to stand on a scale to reachthe tiger’s weight? How many tigers could fit inside your classroom?

After this, ask the pupils to paint pictures of different animals, depicting onefun fact about the animal.

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Once the paintings are done, it’s time to create your zoo! Arrange thepaintings around the classroom – this will give the pupils a chance to sortthe animals into categories, just like in a zoo. Invite parents in and let thechildren tell them all about the animals. They can build or set up amakeshift reception desk, where they can ask for money and hand overtickets and guide leaflets with ‘maps’ of the zoo. Ask small groups ofchildren to be ‘zookeepers’ for individual areas, so they can be designatedexperts about the animals in that area. Get them to entertain parents withthe fun facts they have learned about the animals!

Write some song lyrics Exa 1-18a

Most of us know at least the first verse from the song ‘The Lion SleepsTonight’. Can you get your pupils to make up some more verses withdifferent lyrics? For instance, ‘the monkey swings tonight’, ‘the parrotsquawks tonight’, ‘the leopard climbs tonight’, ‘the tiger roars tonight’ andso on.

Write a poem from a dragonfly’s point of view Eng 2-31a

The life cycle of a dragonfly can make for a great poem! Ask your pupils tofind out all about dragonflies first. The following resources may help:

l A website all about dragonflies: www.dragonfly-site.com/l The BBC’s dragonfly videos: www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Dragonflyl This short film from National Geographic, although some of the

language is quite complex:http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/short-film-showcase/the-secret-world-of-dragonflies

l This dragonfly video is more accessible for younger children:https://youtu.be/A7hjkPknt_M?t=15s

After this, you could choose to guide your pupils in how to structure thepoem, or let them come up with suggestions. The simplest way to go abouta poem would be a story of the dragonfly’s life, describing what it can see,hear, touch, taste and feel at every stage of its life cycle.

If you want to try and find different ways of structuring a poem, try askingyour pupils to write the word ‘dragonfly’ on a piece of paper and mind mapeverything that comes to mind. Examine some of their ideas and see ifthese can form the basis for a poem.

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The urban jungle HWB 2-13a

This activity can help increase your pupils’ awareness of how they can helpsustain urban wildlife. First of all, ask them if they can think of animalswhich live in and around town. If you want to build in more kinaestheticlearning to this element of the task, you can ask them to produce a pop upmodel of their school or home using folded A4 card, and get them to drawthe animals which they think can be found nearby (they could also makethese animals out of playdough). See some example of pop up housesbelow:

Once they’re finished, discuss how they could attract more wildlife to theirhome or school by providing shelter or food. The following websites may behelpful:

l BBC video explaining how to build an insect habitat:www.bbcwildlife.org.uk/sites/birmingham.live.wt.precedenthost.co.uk/files/Insect%20Hotel.pdf

l This website explains how to make a home for hedgehogs:www.hedgehogstreet.org

l These spotter sheets can help your pupils identify the creatures thatcome to visit:www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/naturedetectives/activities/search/?query=&sortby=date&count=10&activityType=100016071&page=2

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Weird and wonderful animals Lit 2-29a

Ask your pupils to research some of the ‘weird and wonderful’ seacreatures in How Animals Live. Ask them to pick one creature and write apersuasive piece from the point of view of the creature, arguing that it is themost wonderful of the weird creatures. They should make use of persuasivelanguage and techniques, perhaps comparing themselves favourably tothe other creatures.

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Appendix 1 – pictures of planets

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Jupiter Mars Mercury

Neptune Uranus Venus

Saturn

Appendix 2 – Match animals to their habitatsMatch each animal to its habitat, based on the clues given.

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1. Cheetah – can run up to 75 miles per hour; 2. Chimpanzee – likes to climb to watch fordanger; 3. Grizzly bear – hibernates during the winter; 4. Alligator – likes to build nestsmade from mud.

1. Rainforest; 2. Marshes; 3. African plains; 4. Cave

Image credits

Images of planets

Jupiter and Mars image by NASA/JPL/USGS [Public domain], viaWikimedia Commons; Mercury image by NASA/JPL/USGS [Public domain],via Wikimedia Commons; Venus image by NASA Goddard Space FlightCenter on Flickr under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic; Uranusimage by NASA/JPL/Voyager mission (edited by Orange-kun) [Publicdomain], via Wikimedia Commons; Saturn image by NASA(http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06077) [Public domain], viaWikimedia Commons

Images of animals and habitats

Image of cheetah: By Mukul2u (Own work) [CC BY 3.0(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), via Wikimedia Commons;Image of chimpanzee: By Chi King (chimpanzee) [CC BY 2.0(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), via Wikimedia Commons;Image of bear by Bobisbob at English Wikipedia (Original text: Nickles, Jon)([1]) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons; Image of alligator by GarethRasberry (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), via Wikimedia Commons;Image of African plains: By Bjørn Christian Tørrissen [CC BY-SA 3.0(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), via Wikimedia Commons ;Image of Daintree rainforest: By Killerscene (Own work) [CC0], viaWikimedia Commons; Image of Bone Cave Entrance by Anne Burgesscave at http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/139 under Creative Commonsby SA 2.0; Image of marshland by Hillebrand Steve, U.S. Fish and WildlifeService [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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