Teaching About Springtime with Honey Rabbit Book
Using Margo Hopkin's Story to Teach Curriculum Skills
Mar 19, 2009
When Honey Rabbit asked about spring, his dad tells him to go and look in the meadow to see spring for himself. Thus the quest for the meaning of spring begins. Illustrator Cyndy Szekeres created a lovable bunny and meadow full of creatures children will return to often.
Teaching Point of View with Honey Rabbit Book
Each individual Honey Rabbit asked what spring meant gave a different answer based on that particular animal's point of view.
Students can make a table of all the animals and their definitions of spring by folding large construction paper in half, hamburger style. Then list the animal to the left, drawing it if desired. To the right give that animal's definition of spring.
After discussing how point of view affected each animal's meaning of spring, have children make a poster entitled Point of View. This could have speech balloons briefly stating the definition of spring while using either a caption below the animal, a T-shirt motif, or location within the poster to clarify that particular character's point of view.
Identifying Cause and Effect with Margo Hopkins' Book
Children can construct sentences on sentence strips for display, or on lined paper, to explain why each animal had a certain opinion of spring. Include words like "since" or "because" in each sentence. For example, "The mother squirrel said spring was when new babies were in the meadow because she had babies in her arms."
These sentence strips can be cut before the causative words so students can reassemble them during an anchor activity when it is time for centers.
Improving Writing Skills with Honey Rabbit Book
Students can write a story telling how to know when its springtime. They may uses sentences from the cause and effect activity, but tie them together into a story with a beginning and an end.
Some will write a paragraph story and others may write three or more paragraphs. Differentiated instruction encourages varied performance based on motivation and skill levels.
Distinguishing Fiction and Non-Fiction with Honey Rabbit
Children may label their story as fiction or non-fiction, or even use different colors for each. Classrooms can display work on a bulletin board with fiction on one side and non-fiction on the other. Both the visual input and followup discussion will guide the process of distinguishing between fiction and non-fiction.
Students can be told that just as Honey Rabbit did research in the meadow, and they can do research in the book, or in other books or their own life experiences. To extend the concept, students can find ways to use fictional characters to present non-fictional information.
The book Honey Rabbit is a great way to introduce spring to students. They can work with curriculum skills like point of view, cause and effect, writing skills, fiction and non-fiction, and conduct their own research just as the rabbit did. In any event, they will learn while having fun. What a fine combination!
Reference:
Hopkins, Margo. Honey Rabbit. NY: Golden Books. Western Publishing Company, Inc., 1982.
