Southwest Children's Literature

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Grand Canyon: Exploring a Natural Wonder

Lesson Plan Name
Grand Canyon Poems

Grade level
Second and up

Objectives
Students will be able to know basic information on the Grand Canyon. Students will be able to create descriptive words that they thought suited their perceptions of the Grand Canyon. Students will be able to put their words into phrases and develop free-style poems about the Grand Canyon.

Arizona State Standards
Arts 1AV-F6. Use visual structures (e.g., organizational principles, expressive features, sensory qualities) to organize the components of own work into a cohesive and meaningful whole
PO 1. Create a finished work of art based on organizational principles (e.g., rhythm, emphasis, unity).
PO 2. Use expressive qualities to create meaning in a finished work of art.
Social Studies 3SS-F2. Identify natural and human characteristics of places and how people interact with and modify their environment, with emphasis on:
PO 1. natural characteristics of places, including land forms, bodies of water, natural resources, and weather
PO 2. human characteristics of places, including houses, schools, neighborhoods, and communities
PO 3. the relationship between the physical features and the location of human activities
PO 4. how people depend on the physical environment and its natural resources to satisfy their basic needs
PO 5. how people can conserve and replenish certain resources
PO 6. the ways in which people have used and modified resources in the local region, including dam construction, building roads, building cities, and raising crops.
Language Arts R-F2.Use word recognition and decoding strategies such as phonetic skills, context clues, picture clues, word order, prefixes and suffixes to comprehend written selections.
PO 1. Derive meaning from a written selection using reading/decoding strategies phonetic clues, context clues, picture clues, word order, structural analysis, (e.g., prefixes, suffixes), and word recognition.

Sequence

*Talk about the area of where Arizona is located in the United States and why it is called the Southwestern Region.
*The book is read. At each page, students are to be asked to tell a little about the picture and what the artist wanted to capture. Students are also given bits of historical information about the Canyon.
*After the book, students are asked to think of descriptive words that they thought of when they saw the Grand Canyon and they are to use the book as a reference to description.
* These are the words that the whole second grade class I read to thought up:

tiny
colorful
nature
good
amazing
tall
creatures
magic
nice
beautiful
wild
natural
mountains
butterflies
insects
bees
blue
huge
cool
water
awesome
surprising
trees
plants
quiet
clean
rocks
pictures
perfect
view
cliffs
green
flowers
rainbow
dirt
caverns
quiet
grass
animals
fish
purple

*Students take words from this list, as well as others they think of, and use them in their poems about the Grand Canyon.

Prompts
Do you know what other places are named after Powell?
Why is this rock called "Sinking Ship"?
What do you notice most about the picture?
What kind of plant is this?
Why do you think it is only wild?
How does the Canyon make you feel?
If you closed you eyes, what do you think of?


Additional Ideas
Students can also take an illustration from the book and try to recreate it in their own watercolors. They can also paint the Canyon as they see it or as they believe it looks. Students doing their own watercolors helps to generate interest about the Grand Canyon and build creativity in creating art like the author had done.

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