Lizards for Lunch: A Roadrunner's Tale

In the classroom/library:

Goals: To use literature to learn about roadrunners and write a set of instructions (a recipe).

 Objectives: 
Students will hear Lizards for Lunch: A Roadrunner's Tale (a picture book poem about roadrunners). 
Students will learn about roadrunners (their habitat, diet, physical appearance, movement and speed).
Students will compose a recipe for a roadrunner, based on what they learned about their diet.
Students will illustrate their recipe.

Questions:
What do roadrunners eat?
What would you like to feed a roadrunner for lunch (humorously)?

Core Curriculum (Tucson Unified School District)

Science

Describe and explain the interrelationship of populations, resources and environments.
Identify characteristics of plants and animals (including extinct organisms) that allow them to live in specific environments.

Language Arts

Listening and Speaking
Use active listening strategies (e.g., ask questions, repeat information).  

Reading
Identify facts, main idea, sequence of events, define and differentiate characters and determine the author’s purpose in a range of traditional and contemporary literature.

Writing
Students demonstrate the ability to describe, organize, sequence, and categorize ideas to complete a variety of writing tasks.
Organize content, including necessary components of the selected format, for a specific audience.

Prior Learning: Students have been studying bugs (mealworms and beetles).

Procedure:

1. Introduce the roadrunner book/subject by asking if students have seen roadrunners near their homes or in the desert. Discuss briefly.
2. Talk about the prior learning going on in their classroom involving bugs and encourage students to listen for the information about the roadrunners’ diet in the book being shared.
3. Read Lizards for Lunch.
4. Conduct brief whole class discussion on what roadrunners eat.
5. Explain the assignment to write a recipe for a roadrunner.
6. Display and review two large size examples of a recipe for a roadrunner (Peanut Butter and Lizard Sandwich, Crunchy Cricket Granola, etc.).
7. Review the components of a recipe (Title, Ingredients, and Directions) and generate two lists of vocabulary words related to cooking and recipes.
8. Allow students to look over some simple cookbooks for children to get ideas about recipes.
9. Provide paper, pencils, and crayons for the recipes and illustrations.
10. Emphasize what the assignment consists of and how it will be assessed (see below).

Assessment: A complete assignment will have: Student’s Name, Recipe Title, Ingredient List (with two or more ingredients), and Directions (with at least two directions).  Remind students that even though these are recipes that are made up and humorous, the directions should be clear and make sense.  The student will review the finished assignment with one of the teachers before it is considered complete.   

Resources: The picture book Lizards for Lunch written by Conrad Storad and illustrated by Beth Neely Don Rantz.

Supplies:
White 8 x11 paper for illustrated recipes.
Pencils, crayons
Two sample recipes (large size, to post for students to refer to
12 – 20 cookbooks for children from school/public libraries

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