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Illustration by Rick Spears
(c) 2007
WARNING: Chupacabras Sighting in YOUR Neighborhood!
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NEW! Teacher Guide for TALES OF THE CRYPTIDS
Kelly Milner Halls, Rick Spears, and Roxyanne Young are all available to come and speak at your special book events, author talks, and school visits. Please contact each of them to check their available dates.
Kelly Milner Halls, www.KellyMilnerHalls.com,
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Kelly's School Visits flyer (.jpg)
Rick Spears,
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Roxyanne Young, www.RoxyanneYoung.com,
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Roxy's School Visits Flyer (.jpg) |
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TALES OF THE CRYPTIDS:
MYSTERIOUS CREATURES THAT MAY OR MAY NOT EXIST
As Investigated By Kelly Milner Halls,
Rick Spears, and Roxyanne Young
Darby Creek Publishers, Fall 2006
Ages 10+
Guide created by Roxyanne Young, M.A.
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Click the cover to order the book!
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Language Arts/Writing Workshop:
- Imagine you’re a hiker on a mountain trail. You reach the top of the ridge and turn to enjoy the view. Before you lay remote valleys, mountains, and a pristine glacial lake in the distance. The sun is dipping toward the horizon and it will be time to set up camp soon, but the hillside behind you is thick with trees and small flowers line the gravelly path you’re on. You take a deep breath and drink in the fragrance of forest, lake, and rocks, and…something else. What’s that smell?
- Create a Reader’s Theater play about a group of campers who meets a Bigfoot in the wild. How do the campers react to the encounter? How does Bigfoot? Be sure to include what happens afterward. Do they report it to the media? Get pictures? Do their family and friends believe them? Do others go try to find the creature?
- Believers and Skeptics: As a class, select a creature from the book that is still in the “Unknown” category, then divide your class into two groups, one group being the Believers and the other being the Skeptics. Does your creature exist or not? Present historical evidence, interviews with experts, eyewitness testimony, a poll of your fellow students from other classes, etc. Be creative and do your best to prove your point with factual information. If you’re in an area where these creatures have been reported, do some research using old news reports, books by local authors, eyewitness stories from residents in your town who have actually had sightings, and so on. Make you case and provide an annotated bibliography with your presentation.
- Write a short story about meeting one of the creatures in the book. Imagine you’re swimming in a lake when you see a strange set of humps coming toward you, or that you’re in a small fishing boat on a river in Africa when Kongamato swoops down at you. What do you do? Who do you tell, if anyone? What happens next?
- Write an essay about the benefits vs. costs of preserving the natural spaces in the world where these creatures live. Try to present both sides fairly.
- Write/perform a mock news story about a cryptid sighting at your school.
Social Studies:
Town Hearing on the Rainbow Ridge Development*
Divide your class into the following groups:
- Judge and lawyers representing the following groups
- Scientists and Researchers
- Subgroups: animal experts, sociologists, economists, environmental engineers, risk analysts
- Citizens
- Subgroups: workers who need jobs, people who need affordable housing, people supporting progress, people who oppose cutting down forests to build strip malls, politicians, land developers, campers and nature lovers, residents, animal lovers, etc.
- Cryptid Creatures
- Subgroups: land creatures, water creatures, air creatures, reptilian creatures, creatures of myth and legend
Have each group develop their case, then discuss the repercussions of what happens when a new housing project needs to be built, and a spot has been chosen at the edge of a national park. The project will include homes for 1,000 families, new schools, a library, shopping centers, restaurants, and entertainment centers, and an industrial area that will provide jobs for this economically-challenged area. It will provide an economic boom for the area. It will also mean cutting down several hundred acres of forest, destroying the habitat of countless animals that are known, and there are rumors of creatures living in those hills that are more mysterious. There will be an increase in air, water, noise, and light pollution. Will the development plans go through, or be stopped?
*You can make up your own name for the development.
Art:
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Make your own Bigfoot casts! You can do this in class using sandbox sand (fine grain is better) and Plaster of Paris. Pour the sand into an aluminum pie plate or shallow dishpan. Walk as you normally walk, only step into the pan as you go so you get a natural footprint. Follow the directions on the package and pour in the plaster (it’s actually best to cut the recommended amount of water in half so that your cast will come out stronger). Be sure to affix a large paperclip in the back so that you can hang your foot cast on the wall when you’re finished. When it’s dry, you’ll have a sand-covered footprint of your very own!
- Create a cave wall in your classroom and draw some of the cryptid creatures using the same elements that indigenous peoples might have used: chalk, charcoal, paint made from the ubiquitous Tempera berry.
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Build a papier maché model of your favorite cryptid.
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Create a diorama of your favorite cryptid in its natural habitat.
Math/Science/Research:
Contact your local zoo and ask how much food and water grown gorillas require to survive in the wild. How much land do they usually inhabit? What is their natural range and communal structure? Now, extrapolate that information to a 7-foot bipedal primate living in the rural mountain region closest to you. What would this creature eat, and how much? How many acres would this creature require to stay away from humans?
Try it with a water creature – would the largest body of water near you sustain a colony of mysterious creatures?
Games/Teamwork/Comprehension:
Divide your class into teams and create a Cryptid Jeopardy game with the following categories: Land Creatures, Water Creatures, Air Creatures, Reptilian Creatures, Who Knows?, or make up your own. Create questions for each category and award points for each correct answer. Be sure to make up enough questions to keep the game interesting. The team with the most points wins!
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