McBarnett's illustrations coupled with a dramatic reading, or word embedding prior to reading, make the meanings clear in context. They show anger and shame at the carelessness of their fellow human beings who fail to show respect for the environment. The Brave Little Turtle is a wonderful story, rounded out with a page of scientific turtle facts printed on the back cover. A turtle prop to assist in telling the story can help maintain interest, as the book may be a bit long for some younger children. Gill McBarnet draws attention to other marine animals, while bringing home the message of protecting our ocean resources from pollution.
Children enjoy hearing the story over and over again.
In a thematic unit, content areas can include science, geography, social studies, language arts, history, and mathematics. Record this information on a chart tablet as a base for further exploration. The design of the printed text layout lends itself to being covered easily in order to facilitate a visual exploration of the illustrations and imbedding new vocabulary words prior to reading. After a visual tour through the book, have students write their own predictions of what they believe the story is about. Read the book and refer back afterward to the original baseline informationrecorded on the chart tablet.