One Tiny Turtle Craft and Writing

Summer school seems like a long time ago.  But really it was only a few weeks back.  One of the activities during summer school was learning about sea turtles.  

Have you read this book?  It is beautiful!  I did not think to take pictures of the inside and I wish I had.  The illustrations are beautiful!  The text is written in two ways.  The main text is written in a beautiful, lyrical way that is more story like.  Then more factual text is also added that gives the reader more sea turtle facts.  

The students picked up on the fact that the book told about the life cycle and that the cycle repeats.  So we used circles cut from wallpaper sample books to represent that cycle.

The shape at the top is to show an egg, how the turtle starts out.  The rest of the shapes were made to look like turtles.  You lift the flaps to read what the students wrote inside for the stages of the sea turtle.

This student wrote that the sea turtle lives among the sea weed for one stage.  On the other flap they wrote that the sea turtle returns to the beach to lay their eggs. 

The kids had a good time creating their life cycles and it made an interesting display for the wall.

The students also got to make their own tiny turtles.  I drew a turtle shape for them to cut out.  We went on a rock hunt outside to find just the right rocks for the turtle shells.  Students then got to design and paint their shells.  One turtle has a bottle cap for the shell.  But we liked the way the rocks turned out better.  

If you haven't gotten One Tiny Turtle, this would be a great book to add to your classroom library!