Before Reading
KWL (Know - Want to Know – Learned): Discuss what you know about seasons and daylight. When is there more light? When is there less? How is the amount of daylight related to temperature, plant growth, and activity?
Personal Applications: Discuss, write, or draw about these questions: On what special occasions do you get to stay up late? What do you do when you stay up late? How do you feel?
While Reading
Predictions: What else might the child see? Who do you think will fall asleep?
Language: Find words that create strong sensory images. Note the use of hyphens to create new words like “sun-spackled” and “fish-dancing.”
Setting: Which images are unique to Alaska? Which might be seen anywhere?
After Reading
Revisit the Pre-reading Activities: Compare personal applications to the experiences of the child in the story.
Passages: Use one of the sensory images from the book to start your own story or poem. Include other strong images and verbs from the book where you can.
Predictions: Tell or write a story about what might happen if the child didn’t fall asleep at the end of the story.
Primary Research: Find resources that track the amount of daylight where you live. Weather reports and the internet are good places to look. Make a chart or a picture showing how daylight changes with the seasons.
Interdisciplinary Connections
Social Studies: Discuss the terms “solstice” and “equinox.” Study the importance of solstice celebrations in different cultures. Why did ancient people, including the Indians, track the movement of the sun?
Art: Draw or paint one of the scenes from the story as you imagine it happening six months later, in the middle of winter.
Science: To simulate the effect of the seasons on the amount of daylight at the poles, try this demonstration adapted from Amazing Alaska by Deb Vanasse, Sasquatch Books, 2010. You’ll need one white push pin and one red push pin, an orange, a protractor, a yardstick, and a table lamp with removable shade and a round base.
In this demonstration, the orange represents the earth, the lamp represents the sun, and the white pushpin represents the North Pole. With the help of an adult, press the white push pin into the top of the orange. Using the protractor, measure approximately 23 degrees from the white push pin and insert the red push pin. Tilt the orange so that the red push pin is at the top and the white push pin is off to one side.
Ask the adult to remove the lamp shade, plug in the lamp, and hold one end of the yardstick at the base of the lamp. Position the lamp so that you can hold the other end of the yardstick next to the orange. Dim the lights and walk a slow circle around the lamp, holding your end of the yardstick to the orange while the adult holds her end at the base of the lamp, moving it around the base to follow your movements. Be sure to hold the orange steady against the yardstick, with the red push pin pointing straight up.
Watch the changing areas of light and shadow around the white push pin. Stop when the white push pin is in the shadow. This would be arctic winter, when the sun doesn’t rise. Stop again when the areas of light and shadow are exactly half. This represents the equinox, when days are twelve hours long all over the world. Stop one more time when the white push pin is in the light. This is arctic summer, when the sun doesn’t set.
