ENGL 112A

Dr. Sigler

The Desert is Theirs by Byrd Baylor, illustrations by Peter Parnall



Suggested Activities
 

• Have the students use the poem as part of a choral reading. Record it, using music by Native Americans of the Southwest as part of the background. The students can then use the recording as part of a listening station.

• Make a mural of the Sonoran Desert.

• Show a video on the life in the different deserts found throughout the USA and the world. Compare the differences in the deserts of the southwest USA and those in other regions of the world. An excellent video to use is Eyewitness Deserts. An option for this activity is to list 10 facts about the deserts.

• A good book to supplement the study of desert plants and their importance is Cactus Hotel by Brenda Z. Guiberson.

• Visit the Lower Sonoran Desert <http://www.goldcanyon.com/oldhtml/imagesf.htm> and see images of the plants, including the saguaro and other cacti, animals, landscape and features of this region. This site also has a section on how plants, animals and humans adapt for desert survival.

• At Desert Plants <http://desertusa.com/flora.html> the students can learn about the different plants found in the desert. The images are beautiful and the descriptions are concise, yet kid-friendly.

• As part of the music appreciation curriculum, bring in and play music performed by Native Americans of the Southwest.

• On a blank USA map, find and color in the region of the Sonoran Desert. Label it. Then find other deserts (for example, the Mojave, Painted Desert, Death Valley, etc.) and plot those on the map. After the students have plotted and named these deserts, have them draw conclusions about the region/locations of the deserts in terms of environment, survival, etc.

• After viewing the links on the Sonoran Desert and the desert plants, the students can prepare mini-posters on the various aspects of the desert. These posters should contain the plant or animal, a brief description about it and how it survives in the desert, and be colorful and neat. The posters can be displayed then later bound into a class book.

• Learn more about Byrd Baylor <http://www.simonsays.com/kidzone/auth/bbaylor.html> and find out how she decides what to write about next.

• More Books by Byrd Baylor: