March 28, 2012

Eric Carle/Gail Gibbons Unit

I absolutely love when Spring comes along because that's when we begin our Living Things units.  I use Eric Carle and Gail Gibbons books to teach the students about living things.  For each topic (bees, butterflies, plants, ocean life, etc.), the students create a page to add to their own books.  I laminate all the pages and bind them together at the end of the year.  It's a great way to showcase the students' writing and artistic abilities.  We usually begin working on the books in March and keep adding to them until the end of the school year.

The first step is to make our book cover.  I show the students a video of Eric Carle explaining how he creates his illustrations.  The video can be found on Scholastic's website or YouTube.
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/eric-carle-author-study


Next the students use small pieces of tissue paper to cover a piece of construction paper.  Then, the students glue on the title of our book and a picture of Eric Carle and Gail Gibbons.  (The first time I made these books, I only used Eric Carle.  I've since added Gail Gibbons.)  Finally, the students glue a Created by/Dedicated to sheet for the inside of the cover.

My example that I made a few years ago. 
A student example


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