{"id":261564,"date":"2010-02-01T15:58:22","date_gmt":"2010-02-01T20:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/archives\/2307"},"modified":"2010-02-01T15:58:22","modified_gmt":"2010-02-01T20:58:22","slug":"teaching-life-science-with-the-great-kapok-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/261564","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Life Science with The Great Kapok Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Great Kapok Tree<\/a> <\/em>written by Lynne Cherry takes place in the Amazon Rain Forest where two men arrive at the great Kapok tree with the determination to chop it down.\u00a0 The older man points out this particular Kapok tree and walks out of the Rain Forest leaving the younger man to finish the job.\u00a0 After a few swings of the ax, the man becomes tired and sits at the bottom of the tree and falls asleep.\u00a0 While he sleeps, all different types of animals come down from the tree and whisper to the young man not to destroy their home.\u00a0 A giant boa constrictor whispers that many generations of his family have lived in this tree.\u00a0 A group of tree frogs make their way down to tell the man that chopping down this tree will leave many homeless.\u00a0 Tree porcupines find the man to tell him that animals and humans need oxygen to live, and that trees produce oxygen.\u00a0 When the man finally awakes he is surrounded by all the animals that came to visit him during his nap.\u00a0 He gets up slowly taking in all the beautiful sights and smells, and begins to raise his ax to resume chopping.\u00a0 But instead, he drops the ax and walks out of the rain forest.<\/p>\n

Curriculum Connections
\n<\/strong>The Great Kapok Tree <\/em>is a great book that would show students that animals need food, water, shelter, air, and space to survive (SOL Va K.7a).\u00a0 With all the images of the animals, it would be a great visual aid to demonstrate that animals and their offspring are similar but not identical in appearance ( SOL Va K.7d). The Great Kapok Tree<\/em> could also be used as an introduction to classifying animals and incests(SOL Va 1.5a,b,c).\u00a0 The rain forest is also an excellent example of a habitat and what an animal needs from the habitat they live in(SOL Va 2.5a,b,&c).
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