Day 108


I absolutely loved Salamander Sky and so did my students. This story is about a little girl's efforts to help baby salamanders migrate across busy streets into the safety of a pond. I love this story on so many levels. The illustrations are beautiful and the text is lyrical. My students were captivated by the story.

After reading it, my students had to know if the spotted salamander lived in Michigan. So we researched and discovered that indeed, it did. (How did I ever teach before Google?) We then got into a discussion about how people can help or hurt animals.  This is so exciting because we have been writing opinion papers in class and after weeks on end of giving opinion prompts, I run a little dry on ideas. Salamander Sky inspired a whole list of issues my students were ready to write and happy to write about.

We are also beginning our animal report unit soon. One of the concepts we cover is the threats animals face and how do humans impact each animal. This was a great opportunity to plant some background knowledge.

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