Yucky Worms by Vivian French, illustrated by Jessica Ahlberg
Grade: 3rd Grade
Content Area: Science
TEKS: 112.14
(9) Organisms and environments. The students know that organism have characteristics that help them survive and can describe patterns, cycles, systems, and relationships within the environment.
(A) observe and describe the physical characteristics of environments and how they support populations and communities within an ecosystem.
One day when I was in Grandma’s garden, Grandma dug up a slimy, slithery, wiggly worm. “Yuck!” I said. “Throw it away!” “Throw it away?” Grandma looked horrified. “Would you throw away one of your friends?” “You can’t be friends with a worm,” I said. “You can’t even tell which end is which.” “Yes, you can! Watch.”
Summary: This is an informational book on worms. The story begins with a grandmother gardening with her grandson and the grandmother dug up a worm. The little boy is grossed out and insists his grandmother throws away the worm, but the grandmother enlightens the boy about worms. These include how to tell the tail from the head, where worms live, the food worms eat, how worms move in dirt and more. The grandmother also debunks common misconceptions about worms. She gives her grandson a better understanding of the benefits of worms and why it is good to have worms in a garden. The book ends with a “how to be a wormologist!” that is available for students to follow and practice. I chose this because it is perfect for a science lesson and afterward students will be able to be a wormologists and looks for worms outside the school.
I love how specific and focused this book is on worms! Your snippet of the book definitely makes me want to get the book and read it for myself to find out how to find the head of a worm. I also like your idea of encouraging students to go outside, find worms, and identify what they learned from the book. This kind of activity promotes “hands-on” and “minds-on” learning, and sets a purpose for the real world. Thank you so much for sharing this book!
I love this book! I enjoy the dialogue the grandmother and the grandson have together. I also enjoy the small snippets of valuable information about worms, their environment and how they help our environment. The illustrations in this book are done so beautifully and I believe this helps the audience to really connect with the book as well. A suggestion I have is, if you were to use this book in your future classroom, to bring earth worms into the class before you read it. As extreme as this sounds, exposing students to “yucky” things like worms before you read will help decrease anxieties or even fears of the slimy critters. Plus, it would really get their attention. What a hook that would be!