Someone Walks By

Suggested ages:    5-10

Reading the Story

Summary:  Tracks cross each page as someone walks by the environments of various animals surviving winter. We do not see the animal who leaves these tracks until the last few pages. The text and illustrations show particular species in their winter biome, showing some of what they do to adapt to the harshness of winter life.

Tips for Reading: This book can be taught as a lesson on animals surviving winter, or can be read to identify winter animals in their habitats. It is suggested that the reader look for the tracks on each left hand page and look for hints of hidden animals on some of the left hand pages that will show up in close ups on the right hand pages.  

Questions before reading:

• Name some things that might change for animals as the season changes.
• Have you seen tracks in the snow in the winter? Name some animals whose tracks you might see in the snow in a northern climate.
• Name five things that humans do in winter that are different from summer.  
• Think of what you know about humans long ago. What did they do for food and shelter in winter and how is it different from today?
• Imagine what might be the two hardest things about surviving the winter as an animal.
• Think of different ways that various animals find food. Discuss the words carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore. As you read, think of
• what kind of eater each animal is.
• Think of why almost all insectivores must hibernate or migrate.

Introduction to story:  Our main character is a mystery animal who leaves tracks as it walks through the woods after a heavy snowfall. It is seeking something. This animal crosses through the habitats of many species of animals, some sleeping, some hiding, some returning after our mystery animal passes by. As it walks by, learn about the many creatures of this forest and how they survive the harshness of winter.

Another way to listen to the story:  Think about what the animals of each page is doing to stay alive through winter. Are they hiding, are they sleeping, are they hibernating, are they looking for food, are they staying warm, are they by themselves or with others of their kind?

Questions after reading:

• Name three animals in the book that are hibernating? (Discussion of hibernation can take place at this time. Find definitions of hibernations and discuss. (Refer to basic information included in the glossary at the end of the lesson plan as well as resources for further research.)
• Describe from the picture on page 11 of the world under the snow. Who lives there? Who goes there for lunch? Who helps make airshafts into this world? (Discussion of subnivian world in Further Information. With resources.)
• Describe three animals who are actively looking for food. Where are they looking? Do you think food is harder for them to get in winter? Why or why not?
• From the story or from other winter animals you might know, name three carnivores (meat eaters).
• From the story or from other winter animals you might know, name three herbivores (plant eaters).
• From the story or from other winter animals you might know, name two omnivores (eats plants and animals).
• Name two animals in the story that change the color of their coats to white. Do you know of other animals that have white coats? What two reasons can you think of for changing to white or being white?
• Some animals make shelter for themselves; some find shelter. Name four animals in this story who have made shelters. How are they similar and different?
• Some animals are predators; some are prey. Discuss the definition of these terms and name some animals in each category.
• How does a bear’s hibernation compare with a bat’s? How is it similar?

RELATED ACTIVITIES

Vocabulary: Define and talk about any or all of these terms in relation to wildlife in winter.

Environment: The surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives.

Biome: A naturally occurring community of plants and animals occupying a particular geographical habitat.

Climate: The weather conditions in a certain area over a long period of time.

Shelter: A place giving temporary protection from bad weather or danger.

Carnivore: An animal that feeds on other animals.

Herbivore: An animal that feeds on plants.

Omnivore: An animal that eats both plants and animals.

Insectivore: An animal that eats primarily insects.

Hibernation: A state of winter dormancy, a period of inactivity in which an animal will save energy by maintaining a lowered body temperature for most of the winter and/or a set of seasonal adaptations that animals use to survive a seasonal lack of food.

Migration: To go from one area to another regularly because of change of seasons.

Species: A group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding.

Subnivian: Living under the snow as an adaptation to winter.

Predators: Those animals that hunt and eat other animals.

Prey: An animal that is hunted and eaten by other animals.

Insulation: Material that protects by preventing the loss of heat

Metabolism: A chemical process that maintains life by the use of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats to form tissue, and to provide and store energy.

Hyperphagia: Period of hyper eating to put on fat for winter.

Art: Try the technique used by the artist of this book. Make a winter background for a favorite animal from torn or cut, painted and pasted paper. Make the animal from cut paper and paste him into his environment. If you want to hide him, make a flap in the picture for him to hide behind.

Culture: Do you think northern animals have similar behavior around the world? Look at the globe and guess which areas would have hibernating animals, then look up those countries to see if you can find out which wild animals live there. (Poland, for example, or Finland, Canada, or Russia ...)

Dramatization:  Have a box of animal names and a boxful of dress up clothes and props. Example: Child draws chipmunk, says, “I am a chipmunk and I must gather lots of food (have a cardboard bag of nuts of some such) then get in my tunnel (under a desk) to sleep on my dinner pile.”  Or “I am a bear and I must eat ten hours a day until before hibernation to make sure I have enough fat to live through the winter (wraps in a large furry coat stuffed with a pillow?). After preparing my den with fresh leaves and branches (some branches in a box) I will sleep for seven months.” These statements could be prepared ahead of time as “helper lines,”  given or matched to correct animals as an activity. Students could choose to perform their role with or without the helper lines. Is could be acted out for an audience who must guess the animal being portrayed (adapt as appropriate for age).

For an ambitious advanced activity, the class could dramatize the whole story, writing lines for animals for each page. Each scene would begin by the wolf character tracking across the stage, sniffing the ground.

Math:  Make a graph of heartbeats, breaths per minute, or temperatures of humans and the animals listed below in summer and winter. Do more than one for comparison.
 

Figure out how many healthy dinners a bear would have to eat to equal his required calorie intake per day during hyperphagia (15,000 to 20,000 calories a day). Imagine and write down a list for a healthy human dinner, count the calories, and divide into 20,000!!

Science:  

Inside/Outside: List as many as you can in each column

Similar adaptations:

List as many animals for each as you can think of. If you wish, find differences in each category. (Example, how is a chipmunk’s hibernation different from a bears?)
Who has dens? 
Who hibernates?
Who sleeps a lot?
Who sleeps in bunches?
Who is active most of the time?
Who hides?
Who swims in winter?
Who digs into mud and soil to become dormant?
Who hunts?
Who uses snow as protection?
Who stores food?
Who eats twigs and bark?
Who travels well on snow? 
Who has trouble traveling in snow?

Differing definitions:

On websites or from books or other references, find different definitions of the term HIBERNATION. Compare and discuss the definitions. What does this say about science, that two scientific sources could have two different definitions?

Suggestions for English Language Learners: Divide students into small groups. Put the name of a single animal on each page. Beneath it, have each group write as many words or phrases as they can to describe the animal in winter. Example: ERMINE: white, fast, hunter, eats mice and voles, black tip on tail, dives into snow, small, fierce, weasel. Have students pass the sheets around, then review the words with whole group.

Language arts activities:  Choose an animal and write a poem using the model:  In winter I am ... as beginning of every line.

Example: 

Ermine

In winter I am small and silvery quick.
In winter I am a fast shadow.
In winter I am hunting hungry.
In winter I am a diver of holes in the snow, looking for dinner.
In winter I can never be still.
In winter my black tail is a dot in the snow, like an eye.
In winter I am white on white.
In winter I give a shiver of fear to small ones    
Under their crust of snow.

Activities for Special Needs Students

Acrostic: Write the letters of an animal’s name down a page. Find a word  or phrase that fits with each letter that describes the animal or his winter life.

Creating word finds or crosswords: go to the following website (or similar sites) to create word finds or crosswords to fit the age group or student: http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com

Scaled down reports: Make subtitles on a printed form for students to use for guiding the information they gather about an animal. (Examples: Description, winter behavior, where they live in winter, diet.) Students could dictate a sentence for each, then type the result. Download illustrations of the animal.

More books and websites on this subject:

FOR OLDER STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

Mammals of North America (temperate and Arctic Regions),  Adrian Forseth
The Mammals of Minnesota, Evan B Hazard, (University of Minnesota Press, 1982)
Flying Squirrels : Gliders in the Dark, Nancy Wells- Gosling. (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985)
The Black-Capped Chickadee, Susan M. Smith, (Cornell University Press, 1991)
Winter World, Bernd Heinrich, (Harper Collins, 2003)
Winter, An Ecological Handbook, James Halfpenny, Roy Ozanne  (Johnson Books, 1989)
Discover Nature in Winter,  Elizabeth Lawlor, (Stackpole Books 1998)
Canoe Country Wildlife; A Field Guide to the North Woods and Boundary Waters, Mark Stensaas, (Duluth, Mn: Pfiefer-Hamilton, 1993)
A Guide to Nature in Winter; Northeast and Central North America,  Donald Stokes,   (Little, Brown, and Co. 1976)
The Beaver, Natural History of a Wetlands Engineer,  Dietland  Muller-Schwarze and Lixing Sun,  (Comstock Publishing, 2003)
Beavers, a Wildlife Handbook, Kim Long  (Johnson Books, 2000)
Paddy, A Canadian Naturalist’s Story of an Orphan Beaver, R.D. Lawrence  (Knopf, 1977)
Field Guide to Tracking Animals in Snow, Louise R. Forrest, (Stackpole Books, 1998)
Moose,  Giant of the Northern Forest, Bill Silliker,Jr., (Firefly, 1998)
Black Bear; Seasons in the Wild, Tom Anderson (Voyageur Press, 1992) 
The Great American Bear, Jeff Fair  (Northword, 1994)
The Wolves of Minnesota, L. David Mech, (Voyageur Press, 2000)
The Way of the Wolf, L. David Mech, (Swan Hill Press, 1991)
Whitetails:  Behavior, Ecology, Conservation,  Erwin Bauer  (Voyageur)    

GOOD CURRICULUM SOURCES:

Discovering Wolves, Nancy Field and Corliss Karasov  (Dog-Earred Press, 1991)
Discovering Black Bears, Anderson, Field, Stephenson, (Dog-Earred Publications, 2007)

WRITTEN FOR KIDS:

Tracks, Scats and Signs,  Leslie Dendy
Amazing Bats,  Frank Greenway  (Eyewitness Juniors,  Knopf,  1991)
Welcome to the World of Bats,  Diane Swanson, (Walrus Books,  1998    )
Amazing Frogs and Toads,  Barry Clarke, (Eyewitness Juniors, Knopf, 1990)
What is Hibernation?  Crossingham, John, and Kalman, Bobbie, (Crabtree Publishing  2002)
Animals in Winter, Bancroft, Henrietta, and Van Gelder, Richard G, Harper  (Collins Children’s Books, 1997)
Who Lives in the Snow,  Jennifer Berry Jones, (Roberts Rinehart, 2001)
Deer Moose, Elk, and Caribou, Deborah Hodge, (Kids Can Press, 1998)
Big Tracks, Little Tracks: Following Animal Prints, Selsam, Millicent, (HarperCollins Children’s Books, 1997)
What do Animals Do in Winter? Berger, Melvin and Gilda, (Ideal Children’s Books, 2002)
Welcome to the World of Porcupines,  Diane Swanson
Prickly Porcupines, Shannon Zemlicka, (Lerner)
Welcome to the World of Skunks,  Diane Swanson,  (Walrus 2002)
Beavers, Deborah Hodge, (Kids Can, 1998)   
The Beaver, Crewe, Sabrina, (Stech-Vaughn, 1998)
Welcome to the World of Beavers, Diane Swanson  (Walrus  1991)
Lynx,, Schneider, Jost,   (Carolrhoda Books, Inc. 1995).
Welcome to the World of Otters, Diane Swanson,  (Walrus 2002)
Welcome to the World of Rabbits and Hares, Diane Swanson  (Walrus  2000)
Our Wild World, Whitetial Deer,  Laura Evert   (Northword Press, 2000)
Welcome to the World of Moose, Diane Swanson  (Walrus Books, 1999)
Black Bear Cub, Alan Lind, (Scholastic, 1994)
Bears for Kids, Jeff Fair, (Wildlife Research Institute, 2006)

ABOUT WOLVES AND WILD DOGS:

Face to Face with Wolves, Jim and Judy Brandenburg  (National Geographic, 2008)
Grey Wolf, Red Wolf,  Dorothy Hinshaw Patent,  (Clarion, 1990)
Walk with a Wolf,  Janni Howker,   (Candlewick Press, 1997)
Look to the North, a Wolf Pup Diary, Jean Craighead, George, (Scholastic, 1998)
The Fascinating World of Wolves, Maria Julivert, (Barron’s 1996)
Amazing Wolves, Dogs, and Foxes,  Mary Ling,  (Eyewitness Junior, Knopf, 1991)
Wolf Pack, Tracking Wolves in the Wild, Silvia Johnson and Alice Aamodt, Lerner, 1985)
Wolves, Gail Gibbons, (Holiday House, 1994)
The Best Book of Wolves and Wild Dogs, Christiane Gunzi  (Kingfisher, 2003)
Coyotes, Cherie Winter  (Carolrhoda, 1995)
The Great American Wolf, Bruce Hampton (Owl Books, 1997)

BIRDS

Birds of Minnesota Field Guide, Stan Tekeila (Cambridge, MN: Adventure Publications, 1998)
Birds of Prey of Minnesota, Stan Tekeila (Cambridge, MN: Adventure Publications, 2002)
Owls of the North: A Naturalist's Handbook by David Benson (Stone Ridge Press, 2007)

WEBSITES

www.bear-tracker.com
www.bear.org
www.wolf.org
www.animal.discovery.com
www.kidsplanet.org
www.nationalgeographic.com/kids
www.nwf.org/kids
www.worldwildlife.org
http://nature.org
http://www.wolf-ridge.org
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/young_naturalists
http://mff.dsisd.net/Environment/WinterAnimals.htm