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For Teachers

 


© 2007 Steve Gray
from Rising Moon’s
There Was  Coyote Who Swallowed a Flea

 

 

 

 

  

Thank you for visiting my site. I understand how taxed educators are for time, as I was once a teacher myself.

This web page was created to provide support for your classroom instruction. Trade books are the ideal tool to make learning meaningful across all realms of curriculum. 

Curriculum guides for each of my books are provided below, in addition to links of educator interest, including information about grants, authors who support education and Southwestern children's literature.

For information regarding my author visits,
click here.
  
I hope this page proves helpful!

Warmly,

Jennifer Ward

 

  
 

 Curriculum Guides for Jennifer Ward's books
- just click on each link below - 

TOOLS FOR TEACHERS - Ready to use, free lesson plans with everything you need to teach language arts, science, math, social studies, music and art!  Just click and print.

DISCUSSION GUIDES - Quick and easy prompts to engage thinking on various levels about literature.  Click and print.

Additional curriculum resources for Jennifer Ward's books

Story Mapping Lesson for THE SEED AND THE GIANT SAGUARO
 (sequencing events in a story)

Circular plots are ideal for teaching the skill of sequencing events in a story.
Here's a simple and fun lesson to use with students.
Materials needed:  book The Seed and the Giant Saguaro
hula hoop, adhesive velcro, reproducible images.

Because The Seed and the Giant Saguaro has a circular plot (the story ends back where it started), you can use a hula hoop and cut-outs as a means to allow children to retell the story in sequence, in a hands-on fashion. After sharing the story with children during a read aloud, allow them to demonstrate their comprehension and sequencing skills by retelling the events that occurred in the story, via placing the events in proper order on the  hula hoop, clock-wise!

Copy and cut out the images provided (links below).  Place adhesive velcro on the back of each image.  Place adhesive velcro on the hula hoop at approx. 12:00,  1:00, 3:00, 5:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00.

The correct sequence of events are as follows:
1.  Sagauro (12:00)
2.  Fruit drops from saguaro (1:00)
3.  Packrat finds fruit (3:00)
4.  Snake finds packrat (5:00)
5.  Roadrunner finds snake (7:00)
6.  Coyote finds roadrunner (8:00)
7.  Storm arrives (9:00)
8.  Packrat drops fruit/seeds (10:00)
9.  Seed grows to new saguaro (11:00)

Email me and I will send you the images for The Seed and the Giant Saguaro to use with this lesson. Once they're copied, mount them onto tag board and place adhesive velcro on the back>

-saguaro (copy twice)
-fruit (copy twice)
-packrat
-snake
-roadrunner
-coyote
-storm clouds

Grants
 Considering hosting an author visit? Funds tight for your classroom or library?  Here are some fantastic resources that may help. 

Educator Resources

 

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