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Library List of Recommended Books:

Compare and Contrast (Alike and Different)

After a few readings of The Little Island, read Grace for an Island Meal by Rachel Field.

This is a beautiful, rhyming story about a day on one of Maine’s coastal islands. Talk about the islands in both stories. They share several things in common, but they also have some differences. Help your student make a list of things that are alike and different about each island.

Read the book An Island Grows by Lola M. Schaefer. This is a fun, rhyming picture book that shows how a volcanic island is formed.
 

Since some islands are formed from volcanoes, make and erupt your own volcano.

Materials:

-empty juice or two liter pop bottle

-baking dish or foil pan (to set the volcano in if you do this inside)

-funnel

-baking soda

-liquid dishwashing detergent

-vinegar

-red food coloring

-playdough or mud (if you want to do this outside)

Use playdough or mud to mold the volcano around the bottle.

Use the funnel to pour the following into the bottle:  ½ cup water, 4 to 5 tablespoons baking soda, and a few drops of dish detergent.

Mix a few drops of food coloring with ½ cup vinegar. When you’re ready to erupt the volcano, use the funnel to pour in the vinegar. Pour quickly and then get out of the way! For an even larger eruption, use more baking soda and vinegar.

The Four Seasons
Many changes take place on the little island as the seasons come and go. See if your student can point out some of the things that mark each season on the Island.

Then discuss what the four seasons are like in your area. Talk about what the weather is like during each one, what type of clothing people wear, holidays or family birthdays that occur in each season, and the months that each season spans. Does your student know in which season he was born? Have your student choose one thing for each season that stands out to him and helps him to remember what takes place during that season. (ex. summer – sun or flag for July 4^th; winter – snow or a picture of himself dressed in snow gear) Let him use this sheet and draw pictures of his choice in the appropriate section for each season. Some students might prefer to cut pictures from magazines to glue in each section.

Weather
The little Island experiences many different kinds of weather as the seasons pass. Can your student point out some of these? (sun, clouds, fog, wind, rain, snow)  

Ask him what his favorite kind of weather is and why? What about his least favorite?

If your student brings up thunderstorms and is possibly afraid of them, talk with him about things you do to stay safe during a storm. Remind him that God is always watching over us and caring for us. Consider reading Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco.

Have your student begin a daily weather journal. It can be something as simple as drawing a symbol on a calendar. After several days or weeks, it will be interesting for your student to look back at his journal and see the different types of weather that he has experienced. After a couple of months he might begin to notice some patterns. (ex. Snowy weather began to disappear in the month of March, and the sun came out more than it did in the winter months.)

Here are some other fun weather books you might enjoy reading together:

Animals and Migration
In the story many animals come to the island for different reasons. When animals travel to a different area at certain times of the year in order to survive, this is called migration.

Talk about the different animals that migrate to the island and their reasons for coming there. (The lobsters come there to molt, the seals come there to raise their young, and the kingfishers come there to build their nests.) See if your student can name any other animals that migrate to the little island. (butterflies, moths, etc.)

If your student seems really interested in the topic of migration, here are two great books that tell about other migrating animals:

Animal Classification
A wide variety of animals take part in the story. Everything from insects to birds to mammals to crustaceans to fish makes up the community of creatures living on and around the little Island. If you’re student is keeping an animal classification chart or notebook, he can add these cards to his collection.

For any students who are interested in learning more about the crustaceans in the story, here is some information to get them started.

Lobsters are invertebrates, which means they do not have a backbone. They do not have a skeleton on the inside like we do, but they do have a hard exoskeleton, or outer shell, that protects them and gives them their shape. Because they have an exoskeleton, they are also called crustaceans. Lobsters usually live at the bottom of the sea and like to hide in rocks and weeds. They like to eat crabs, clams, small fish, and sometimes even other lobsters! A lobster chews its food with teeth, but its teeth are in its stomach instead of its mouth. Most lobsters are a greenish-brown color. Some lobsters are other colors such as blue, yellow, or white, but this is not common. Most lobsters turn red when they are cooked. When lobsters need to grow, a new exoskeleton is formed underneath the old one. Then they shed their outer hard shell (exoskeleton), and their body grows to fit the new, larger one. This is called molting. While the lobster is molting, it is helpless and unable to protect itself, so it usually hides for several days until its new shell has hardened. A lobster molts many times throughout its life. The largest lobsters ever seen were about four feet long. Lobsters can live to be over one hundred years old!

Time
On page 39 we read that, “Nights and days came and passed…” Talk with your student about the length of a day and night equaling twenty-four hours, one hour equaling sixty minutes, one minute equaling 60 seconds. To help your student get a feel for the length of these units of time, set a timer for one minute. After the timer goes off, talk about whether the minute felt long or short. You might also want to watch a minute pass on a clock with a second hand. Then set the timer for one hour and continue with other activities. At every quarter hour, ask your student how many minutes he thinks has passed. Tell him how many have passed and how many are left to complete the hour. When the timer goes off, talk about whether the hour felt like a long or short period of time and also discuss all the things that took place during the hour. For example, we ate lunch, cleaned up the kitchen, and read a story.


Tint / Shade / Monochromatic Art 
Look through the illustrations in The Little Island. When an artist uses shades and tints of one color to illustrate a scene it is called monochromatic. Mono means one, and chromo means color.

Help your child make a monochromatic picture, demonstrating how to shade and tint colors. Fold a piece of paper in thirds. Using tempera paints (or other mixable paints), choose one color from the color wheel.  Color the center section of the paper with the color. Now, mix a bit of white with the color and paint the bottom section, explaining that this is tint. Tint is adding white to lighten the color, or "value". Then, mix a bit of black with the color and paint the top section, explaining that this is shade. Shade is adding black to darken the color, or "value". You can mix more or less black or white to get different values of the same color. Now have your child paint a monochromatic picture using different values of just one color.

Caldecott Medal
The Caldecott Medal is awarded to the illustrator of the most distinguished children’s picture book of the year. The award was named after Randolph Caldecott, a nineteenth-century English illustrator. The committee who awards the medal chooses a book with excellent pictures – pictures that are drawn or painted exceptionally well and do an outstanding job of telling the story.
Let your student design his own medal to award to a children’s book. He could even name the medal after himself! Bring out some of his favorite picture books for you to look at together. After reminding him of the criteria for the Caldecott winner, have him select one book to give his newly designed award to.