Geography and
Literature:
Bringing the Rain to Kapiti
Plain by Verna Aardema
BY:
Heidi Tornquist,
Purpose: Students will learn
to identify
how climate influences a community and affects
its members.
Grade Level: Grades 4-6, but
adaptable.
National
Geography Standards Addresses:
2.
How
to use mental maps to organize information about people, places, and
environments in
a spatial context.
9. The
characteristics, distribution, and
migration of human populations on
Earth’s surface.
14.
How human
actions modify the physical environment.
15.
How
physical systems affect human systems
7.3.6: Locate and map the climate regions of the
eastern Hemisphere, and
explain how and why they differ.
7.3.10: Describe the restrictions
that climate and
land forms place on land use
in regions of
Objectives:
Students will be able to
analyze the story geographically, and they will be able to explain the
term climate and discuss its relevance in
the story, as well as, to
their own lives.
Materials Required:
Procedure:
1. Review the geography terms used in the story. (See
bottom
of lesson)
2. Be sure the students are able to
locate
3. Have the
students
view the cover of the story and hypothesize how it will relate geographically.
Write their responses on the board/overhead.
4. Perform the activity "Say Something":
a. Students choose a partner, and
each pair is given a single copy of Bringing
the Rain to Kapiti Plain.
b. Each pair of students
should be asked whether they will read the story aloud or silently.
c. One student begins to
read a section of the story. Then, they stop and "say something" about what
was read.
d. After each exchange
of this sort, the partnership continues to read the next several
paragraphs and again each
"says something" to the
other
before going on to the next paragraph, and so on through the
story.
Students can comment on what was just read, make
predictions about what will
happen next, or share experiences related to the
selection.
e. Toward completion,
the teacher organizes a group discussion by writing
a central topic (i.e. climate) from the reading in the middle of the
overhead, circling it twice, and asking students to talk about some of
the
things the author had to say on the topic. Explain what
this concept had to do
with the topic and how it fits in with the other ideas
that the book discussed.
5. Check
the predictions made in step number 2 above by analyzing as a whole
group how this story relates to the
five themes of geography.
6.
Define and discuss the term "climate".
7. Have students create a climograph of
a city in
8. Compare the two climographs and analyze the
information given.
Extensions/Adaptations:
*Have the students travel
along the equator and identify other places/locations
with similar climates.
*Choose
another folktale and research the country of origin.
*Write
a poem about their community incorporating location and geography terms
*Ask
students about cloud formation and why it rains. Begin a study of
the water cycle. Read The
Magic School Bus at the Waterworks
by Joanna
Cole and discuss the water cycle. (Science connection)
*Start
recording weather information and look for patterns.
*Read
another cumulative tale like The House
that Jack Built or I Know an Old Lady.
*Research
an animal from
*Take
a field trip to a local weather station or to a local water treatment facility.
*Economic
connection: scarcity: the condition of not being able to have all of the goods and services that you want.
Related Sources:
Weather and
Climate by Barbara Taylor
Geography from A
to Z by Jack Knowlton
Kenya, Africa's
Tamed Wilderness by Joann J. Burch
Creating
Classrooms for Authors by Harste, Short, Burke
Magic School Bus at the Waterworks
by Joanna Cole
On the Same Day in March by Marilyn Singer
Web Sites:
http://www.geographia.com/kenya/index.html
http://www.weatherunderground.com/
http://www.worldclimate.com
Bringing the Rain to
Kapiti Plain Geography Terms
Plain Climate Acacia Tree
Migration Drought Folktale
Climograph Precipitation Equator