"Those vultures! How could they stand there waiting like that?" I heard that phrase used recently when several students were present. They immediately understood that someone was not being appreciated nicely. How?
Most peopl
e’s react with shudders at the sight of a group of vultures on the road cleaning dead animals. I’ve seen people cringe when vultures begin gathering on trees and fence posts. Great storytelling around a campfire includes vultures.
Yet, these birds are beautiful flyers and a delight to watch in the air. Notice a bird flying high in the sky and it’s probably not a graceful hawk, but the soaring vulture playing in the thermals. I learned this and other easily understood information at Vultures.homestead.com.
Why, after writing such about such girly stuff lately did I bring up vultures? I love the new April Pulley Sayre book Vulture View with illustrations by Steve Jenkins. Besides being a great read-aloud, I can integrate wind currents. I expect to see this title on many state award lists. The author writes about Vulture View on her blog:
I am so excited about this book! It explores the life of vultures, surely some of the most underappreciated cleaners in the world. It also teaches kids about warm air rising and cooling air sinking. Steve Jenkins has created gorgeous art for this book. The text is young, lyrical, with a push, pull, and refrain that kids will love. It works for surprisingly advanced audiences. Older kids seem to like the gritty facts of a vulture’s life.
The Columbus Zoo article on Turkey Vultures has a beginning that begs for kids to keep reading (or not) — If you don’t want to be disgusted, STOP READING NOW. But, if you enjoy getting a little grossed out, keep going!
A librarian blogger for The Magic of Books wrote this post August 31st. PJ Librarian has some interesting reviews on her blog, so I’m glad that my searching led me to The Magic of Books. Two teacher bloggers in A Year of Reading interviewed April Pulley Sayre provide insight in how she chose this topic.
Other sources of info:
Yak’s Corner article on the Cinereous Vulture from the Detroit Free Press
Video from the Internet Bird Collection
Jane Lankford’s webquest on Decomposers or Destroyers for Third and Fourth Graders
Lincoln Park Zoo vulture info
Columbus Zoo info on vultures
Wikipedia article on Vultures
Now, I guess I have to go back and find some girly book again! No, wait! I’m a girl and I really like researching about vultures. I’ll have to balance my blog posts in some other way than gender.
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