Hawk, I'm Your Brother Unit Study

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This unit study includes lessons and activities based on the book Hawk, I’m Your Brother by Byrd Baylor.

Thanks to Sharon Jacksack and Celia for preparing this Hawk, I’m Your Brother unit study.

Hawk, I’m Your Brother Unit Study Lessons

Here is a sample of the lessons found in this Hawk, I’m Your Brother unit study:

Social Studies: Developing Compassion
Capturing wild animals not only causes immense suffering to the individual animals involved; it destroys natural ecologies and habitats and has the potential to put the survival of some species at risk. No matter how big the cage or for how long the bird may occasionally be let out, it is cruel to imprison these intelligent animals and deny them their most basic instinct: the freedom to spread their wings and fly. What basic lessons in compassion did Rudy Soto learn?

Language Arts: Poetic Prose
The prose poem is a method of writing that uses the form and rhythms of poetry, but with many of the conventions of prose. In poetry the basic unit of construction is the line; in the prose poem, as in prose, the basic unit of construction is the sentence. If you are a poet, working with poetic sentences and paragraphs can change your idea about what a poem is, revealing new rhythms and forms. If you are a fiction writer, working with the prose poem may help you work on style and inventive structures. Following a walk through the city or your neighborhood, record your daydream images and observations in a prose poem style as Ms. Baylor does. Does it help you to see the ordinary in a new light?

Science: Red-Tailed Hawk
The Red-Tailed Hawk is a carnivore (meat eater) that belongs to the category of birds known as raptors — birds of prey. They have strong, hooked beaks; their feet have three toes pointed forward and one turned back; and their claws, or talons, are long, curved and very sharp. Prey is killed with the long talons and, if it is too large to swallow whole, it is torn to bite-sized pieces with the hawk’s beak. Red-Tailed Hawks eat rodents such as mice, muskrats, and squirrels as well as snakes, moles, weasels, amphibians, and other birds (pigeons, quail, crows, ducks, woodpeckers, etc.).

The Red-tail is the most common hawk in North America. If you keep an eye out, you will probably see them sitting on fences or poles on the side of the road. Its preferred habitat is mixed forest and fields with high areas for perch sites. I can be found just about anywhere including deserts, grasslands, mountains, and even urban areas.

The red-tailed hawk is large and usually weighs between 2 and 4 pounds. It is about 19-23 inches long. As with most raptors, the female is nearly 1/3 larger than the male and may have a wingspan of 56 inches. This species shows a great deal of individual variation in plumage from brown to gray brown feathers with a white chest. The tail feathers that this bird is named for are red-brown and square-cut.

You can grab a copy of the entire Hawk, I’m Your Brother unit study in an easy-to-print file at the end of this post.

How to Get Started with the Hawk, I’m Your Brother Unit Study

Follow these simple instructions to get started with the Hawk, I’m Your Brother unit study:

Buy a copy of the book, Hawk, I’m Your Brother, or grab one from your local library. Consider checking out other books about birds of prey, too.
Print the Hawk, I’m Your Brother unit study.
Choose the lessons you want to use with your student (a highlighter works great for this).
Enjoy a week of book-based learning with your student.