Poke & Look Learning Books
INTRODUCTION
Dear Teacher,
All children are curious about the world around them. Poke & Look Learning Books open the door to nonfiction subjects in a way that is both informative and fun. With large, durable, board-book pages, spiral bindings, and intriguing die-cut openings, these books beg to be opened.
THEMES
Poke & Look Learning Books are perfect learning tools, in the home or in the classroom. To enable you and your class to get the most out of them, we offer you this Teacher's Guide, which contains helpful suggestions for using each book.
Look Inside a Tree
Look Inside the Ocean
Look Inside a Farm
Look Inside a Rainforest
Look Inside an Airplane
Look Inside a House
Look Inside Your Brain
Look Inside Your Body
Look Inside a Ship
Look Inside a Car
Look Inside the Earth
Let's Look at Dinosaurs
Look Inside a Tree
This book explains in a simple manner the "workings" of a tree – from its roots to its leaves – and the importance of trees to animals and people.
Using the Book
1. Before you read, ask children to help you draw a tree by naming its different parts.
2. Ask what animals might live in this tree, and what might grow on the tree besides leaves – and put these in your tree picture. You might show pictures of different kinds of trees.
3. Take a walk around your neighborhood to identify the variety of trees there.
4. Upon returning to the classroom, write a group story, including all the things children noticed about trees on their "tree walk" – animals in the trees, the feel of the bark, the shapes and colors of the leaves, and so on.
5. Torn-paper tree collages are fun to make. Have children tear long pieces of brown construction paper for the trunk and branches, smaller pieces of green for the leaves, and other pieces limited only by their own imaginations. No two trees will look the same!
Look Inside the Ocean
Who lives among the rocks, wanders in the seaweed, and hides in the sand deep in the ocean? Lots of fascinating animals and plants – treasures that we must understand and protect.
Using the book
1. Before you read, ask children to think of plants and animals that live in the ocean. The book shows some amazing adaptive features.
2. Can your class think of ways other animals have adapted to their environments (a tiger's stripes, a polar bear's fur)?
3. Discuss why the ocean is so important to us and why we must take care of it.
4. If possible, visit a local aquarium for a close-up look at ocean-dwelling flora and fauna. Make ocean pictures. Have children draw real or imaginary sea creatures with crayons. Then have them make a wavy fingerpainting. The painting can be pressed over the drawing, then lifted off – and the sea creatures are swimming in water!
Look Inside a Farm
A simple, colorful, and informative introduction to the farm – who lives there, what grows there, and why farms are important places, all around the world.
Using the book
Before you read, ask children what a farm is for, and what people, animals, and plants they might see on a farm. Get into the farm spirit by singing familiar farm songs, with lots of animal sounds to enjoy.
1. Bring in a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, both familiar and unfamiliar, to slice up and taste. (Examples: peas in the pod, carrots, apples, tomatoes, zucchini, broccoli, red peppers, spinach, potatoes, stringbeans.)
2. Talk about how each grew on a farm before finally being delivered to the store for us to buy and eat. You may find that children are willing to sample foods they might not otherwise choose, because of the shared "picnic"!
3. Leftover potatoes, carrots, zucchini, etc. can be sliced into chunks, then dipped in paint and used to make interesting print designs.
Look Inside a Rainforest
This colorful book tells about plants and animals of the rainforest and other forests, and gives a basic idea of their ecology and geography.
Using the book
Before you read, ask children to imagine they are walking in a deep rainforest. Encourage use of the senses – what do you hear? see? feel? smell? The book explains that more than half of the species of plants and animals on earth live in the Amazon rainforest, and important medicines are made from plants found there. Ask what might happen to these animals and plants if forests start to disappear because we cut them down or don't take care of them.
1. Visit a zoo or museum with a man-made forest or rainforest environment.
