We began our study of whales by practicing our visualization skills during the reading of Whales Passing by Eve Bunting. I read the book to my class and did not show them the illustrations. They used their knowledge of whales and their imaginations to create these wonderful illustrations. We then read the book again and compared their images to the author’s images.

Since this book sparked our interest in whales we decided to read factual books. Two of the books we read were Do Whales Have Belly Buttons? by Melvin and Gilda Berger and I Didn’t Know That Whales Can Sing by Kate Petty. We then compiled a list of whale facts during a shared writing lesson.

During the month of April we read poetry and we decided that we would like to create poems about whales. The form of poetry I chose to teach first was Haiku. I showed the students several sample haiku. We then composed our class haiku during an interactive writing lesson.

We broke into small cooperative groups and each group composed an original haiku. They then sketched a scene with a whale. They used these sketches and the drafts of their poems and recreated them on Kids Pix. We hope you enjoy reading them!