Literary activity: "Hottest Coldest Highest Deepest"

Literacy Activity:

Jenkins, Steve. Hottest Coldest Highest Deepest. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.

After studying and exploring various habitats and the animals that live there, the teacher will read this book aloud to students. After reading it through once, the teacher will go page by page and record the place that is described. The teacher will also highlight some of the important features of each place so that students focus in on the appropriate information, as there is a variety of information given on each page. Students will copy this list of places in the book from the board onto a piece of paper to use while doing their homework.

The teacher will then explain their homework assignment: For homework, students will write two sentences for 8 to 10 of the locations that were written on the board. The first sentence will say what kind of habitat it is, and the second sentence will give an example of an animal that would live there and would state why. Students should try to reference the information that they learned about each place from the book in their sentences. Also, students should try not to use the same animals that were in the book for their examples; encourage them to find their own examples, even if they need to do a little research.

Example: Atacama Desert in Chile

The Sahara Desert in Libya is a desert habitat. A camel would live there because they can withstand the heat and lack of rain of a desert.

Places to list on the board:
 * Nile River, in Africa
 * Lake Baikal, in Russia
 * Mount Everest, in Nepal
 * Sahara Desert, in Libya
 * Vostok, Antarctica
 * Tutunendo, Colombia
 * Atacama Desert, in Chile
 * Mount Washington, in New Hampshire
 * Angel Falls Waterfall, in Venezuela
 * Marianas Trench, in the Philippines
 * Sangay Volcano, in Ecuador
 * Nova Scotia, Canada
 * Mount Rainier, in Washington

In Bloom's Taxonomy, this activity uses knowledge because students need to recall information that they already know about habitats and the animals that live there. This activity also uses application because students must apply their previous knowledge about animals and their habitats to the locations that they learn about in this book.

This literary activity relates to Where do they Live?