This nonfiction picture book includes information about the many animals, plants, and environments in forests including the canopy, tree trunks, shrub layer, forest floor, and streams.
The illustrated pages identify many animals and habitats specific to temperate forests, like those in Oregon.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The book is engaging and accessible to early readers.
It is informative and ends with individual actions people can take to protect forests.
Additional Prerequisites
This nonfiction picture book is in PDF format and can be downloaded to use offline or printed into a book or packet.
Differentiation
Students can take notes on all of the living things they see in the book and describe how they work together in an ecosystem.
Art teachers can group students to create visuals of the different layers of the forest and then display their creations on the wall, organized by layers.
Students in science classes can create a food web of the different organisms in the forest.
ELA teachers can use the chickadee name as a jumping-off point to discuss onomatopoeia.
Students can brainstorm additional ways to help care for the forests that are not mentioned in the book.
Teachers may want to allow students time to identify local or nearby forests that they could visit.
Scientist Notes
This resource from the Oregon Forest Resources Institute is a picture book that shows children all of the life that exists in Oregon forests, beyond the trees. This resource features beautiful illustrations that show the grandeur of the forest and the clear, easy-to-read text guides students through a forest journey. Smaller text boxes that provide additional information or provide good talking points for a classroom discussion are provided. This book starts in the canopy, working down to the forest floor, and then ending with streams. It highlights the different wildlife in each part of the forest. The last page calls on students to care for Oregon’s forests with a checklist of best practices when visiting forests. This resource is attractive, well sourced, and is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
K-ESS3-3 Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment.
LS1: From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
4-LS1-1 Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Informational Text (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.5 Know and use various text features (e.g., headings, tables of contents, glossaries, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.6 Distinguish between information provided by pictures or other illustrations and information provided by the words in a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.7 Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.8 Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence support which point(s).
