Race the Wild: Rain Forest Relay

Hi All!

Race the Wild: Rain Forest Relay is the first in the Kristin Earhart ecosystem series. I love that it has several facts about the ecosystem and explains how they interact.

This is a great read for students in grades 2 - 4. A brief overview for this book: This books starts off a race through different ecosystems. This leg of the race occurs in the Amazon Rain Forest, where along the way the reader will learn many different facts about plants, animals, and other ecosystem parts (in this case about the Amazon River). The story is focused around the Red team and its four members, Sage, Dev, Russell, and Mari.

The main ideas students can take away are:

1.     Interaction of different parts of the rain forest.

2.    There are 4 main levels of the rain forest.

3.    Wildlife facts about thing such as the poison dart frog, squirrel cuckoo, capybara, three-toed sloth, piranha, Amazon River dolphin, and more.

4.    Another aspect of the life supported by the sacred kapok tree. (I think a teacher could even tie in an additional book, The Great Kapok Tree, for additional lessons or comparisons about the rain forest. I thought this was a good connection for my classroom).

I created a literature unit that accompanies this story. In it I included text evidence based comprehension questions, character trait evidence, fact journal, expository writing, and more.

These are some pics from the unit. If you are interested please click on this link: Race the Wild: Rain Forest Relay.

Thanks!

Erin Hansen