One Tiny Turtle

One Tiny Turtle
Written by Nicola Davies and Illustrated by Jane Chapman
Publisher: Candlewick Press, 2001
Grade:K-3
Theme: Loggerhead turtle's habitat

Summary: This is about a Loggerhead turtle. She makes her way from her egg far into the sea to her summer and winter feeding areas and her nesting ground, the beach where she was born. We experience her feasting on crabs, clams and shrimp. The struggle of depositing her eggs in the sand and swimming from one location to another.

Reflection: I love sea turtles so I really enjoyed this book. I love the author's descriptive language to explain the lifecycle of Loggerhead sea turtles. I like on each page how there are interesting well researched bits of information about the Loggerheads. The pictures are very beautiful. This is a great and interesting non-fiction book! There is also a version of this book with a cd including music and facts.

Pre-Reading: Ask children if they know anything about Loggerhead Turtles.Tell the children that they need to listen for similis and metaphors. There are a lot in this book. The children will have background knowledge on similis and metaphors because we will have already gone over what they are.

Post-Reading: I will have sentence strips with the similis and metaphors from the story written on them. I will have a chart with similis on one side and metaphors on the other. The children will help to read each sentence strip and I will call on the students and ask them if that sentence is a simili or metaphor and then he or she will put it on the appropriate place on the chart (under simili or metaphor). Then, they will go back to their seats and write one fact they learned about Loggerhead Turtles and draw a picture.
There is a lot you can do with this book. You could use this book to demonstrate the characteristics of non-fiction books. You could discuss complete sentences and fragments. There are some sentences in the book that are not complete (fragments). Discuss that a complete sentence has a subject and a verb (a doer and an action). I would re-read sentences from the book and students will put their thumb up if the sentence is complete and thumb down if it isn't. Then the students will go back to their seats and write one complete sentence using a fact from the story and then draw a picture. 

About the author: 

Nicola Davies has always been fascinated with animals. Nicola's first job was studying geese in Scotland. She has been all over the world studying animals. She has written 8 non-fiction picture books. All the animals she has written about are creatures she has seen in the wild or habitats she has visited. She visits schools and runs writing workshops for children.