Saturday, November 26, 2011

The Harvest Birds

One of our upcoming reading stories is called The Harvest Birds.
The story is about Juan Zanate, the youngest of three Mexican boys in a family. When Juan's father dies, he leaves his land to his two eldest sons. Juan gets his turn to work a small piece of land given to him by an old man in town, and becomes much more successful than his brothers with the help of zanate birds. Juan learns a lesson of patience, hard work, and the importance of working with nature as he makes his dream of becoming a farmer and land owner come true. 

video of a zanate bird

In celebration of the harvest, we created these scarecrow glyphs. Students had to color according to the directions and we soon found that no two scarecrows were identical, just as no two students are exactly the same! I used a scarecrow and fake fall leaves for the bulletin board border.

Download a glyph with a scarecrow pattern and directions here. Download glyphs here or here.

For more Harvest Birds Activities, check out my class website!