Many Questions

1. Read “Meet Me at the Moon” with children. Ask children to listen for the questions Little One asks. Have them look for sparkles in the illustrations. What do the sparkles represent?
2. After reading, ask children to think about the ways Little One knew that Mama loved her child. Ask them, “What makes you feel loved?” That is the question children can address in their art.
3. With their arms, have children draw huge question marks in the air. Then practice writing question marks on paper. Talk about the function of questions for inquiry.
4. Explain that children will be doing crayon resist. Encourage children to incorporate a question mark somewhere in their work. First, draw designs or images with thick layers of Crayola Crayons.
5. Next, show children how to paint over the crayon with Crayola Watercolors, making a wash of color. What happens to the paint when it is placed on the crayon? Encourage children to be a bit more generous than usual in their use of water.
6. While the paint is still wet, children sprinkle grains of salt on their work. Use just a few grains, to make sparkles similar to the book’s illustrations. Air-dry the paintings flat.
7. Encourage children to explain their work, and what makes them feel loved, to partners, in small groups, or to the entire class.
8. If children wish, assemble the paintings into a class book.

LA: Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses.

LA: Ask and answer questions to help determine or clarify the meaning of words and phrases in a text.

LA: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

SCI: Read texts and use media to determine patterns in behavior of parents and offspring that help offspring survive.

SCI: Use observations of the sun, moon, and stars to describe patterns that can be predicted.

SS: Observe and speculate about social and economic effects on environmental changes and crises resulting from phenomena such as floods, storms, and drought.

VA: Students will initiate making works of art and design by experimenting, imagining and identifying content.

VA: Students will investigate, plan and work through materials and ideas to make works of art and design.

VA: Students will reflect on, share insights about, and refine works of art and design.

VA: Students experience, analyze and interpret art and other aspects of the visual world.

Ask children to make mini-books with their questions—about anything. Fold paper into little books to leave room for one question per page. Encourage them to share their questions in small groups and to research answers.

On another day, focus on the ecosystem and weather depicted in the book. Children can represent the type of weather they find most interesting with different Crayola media. Explore how changing weather patterns affect people around the world.

Children create dioramas in shoeboxes to depict a scene from the book. Assemble the scenes in sequence to retell the story.

Identify the different types of wild animals shown in the book. Where do these animals live in the wild? Locate their habitats on a map. Which ones, if any, are endangered? Why?