Thank you, Earth is a beautifully written book featuring dazzling photographs of nature. The concepts of biology, nature, geography, community and most importantly, respect, take center stage in this book that thanks the Earth for the many gifts it gives us. Each sentence begins with "Thank you for..." and continues with ideas in opposition as well as ideas that coincide. The book also includes numerous ideas of kid friendly ways to take action and a list of resources and organizations with descriptions for further research.
Recommendation of how and where to use it
This book would be a great fit for a read aloud for Earth Day activities; however, it is certainly suitable for any time of the year. The book has numerous child friendly activities suggestions such as:
- A pre-reading/warm up activity could be to go outside and complete observations of nature. Upon returning to the classroom, students could share what they saw.
- Students can write their own version of the love letter to the Earth or they could write thank you notes to other things like the Earth. These could be shared with other classes or schools.
- The idea of gratitude can be discussed after reading the book and students could focus on this value for several days or weeks by showing gratitude for others in their classroom, school or family.
- Students could illustrate their favorite thank you from the book or they could create a pattern found in nature as is discussed in the book.
- Discussions could be had about the different photos by making inferences about where the photo was taken, why that photo was chosen, etc.
- Discussions could be held about the reason the author is thankful and then the ideas could be researched as to why these items play an important role on the earth.