Year 4 - fact or fiction?

In our topic lessons we began to explore why the rainforests of the world are important. Normally, we would introduce this type of question with nonfiction texts in a scientific way. Instead, we read The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry. We started with the question: will we find any facts in this book to help us?

The children were convinced that they would find very few things that were true. We explored the map on page 1 in the photo shown above. We noticed that it was a map of the world showing the location of rainforests and a key which highlighted how they have dwindled over time. We discovered that the plants and animals were accurate for the habitat, that the problems they described were indeed real. We began to understand that you can take a nonfiction topic and create a wonderful story deep rooted in fact and we discussed why an author might do this. Click the link to share this story with your children.