In the mountains of China was a small village living peacefully with their working elephants. They especially liked the baby elephant who would play with the children. The Emperor demanded the baby elephant but it refused to play with the Emperor’s children. The Emperor determined to put him death, but first posed an absurd riddle—whoever could weigh the elephant could win it. A little boy in the village solved the problem (by using displacement) and the baby elephant returned home.
Ting-xing Ye, ©1998, Annick Press, 0-978-155-037526-8
Impressing Students with Hei-dou’s Ingenuity
Read the story to the point where Hei-dou realizes how to solve the problem. In groups, have students propose methods for weighing the elephant. Discuss. Choose the best. Then read the ending so that the students can really appreciate the boy’s ingenuity.
Show images of scales in general. Ask students to explain how they work. (Bringing actual scales in to class would be more exciting.)
Extreme Writing Topics
Always present three possible topics for Extreme Writing so that students will have a choice. My book, The Power of Extreme Writing, is available at ASCD for a complete explanation of this unique approach to journaling.
- Stories about weighing things and being weighed yourself. What about measuring how tall things are?
- Times when you lost something or had it taken away.
- Stories about your pet.
Elephants and Humans
This might be a time to look into the difference between an African and an Indian elephant, and the range of their natural habitats, their behaviours in the wild, and what they have been trained to do by people or ways they have been used by humans.
Starting from this picture book as a stimulus, you can show the first few minutes of the BBC documentary on Hannibal’s army with elephants, to get them interested in elephants in history:
Students then see the list of what they might explore. There are 21 choices on the PDF you can open. With those in front of them, students could pose questions such as:
- What role in history have elephants played?
- Are their any patterns to their use?
- What species of elephants are alive, and which are extinct?
- How do humans use elephants now?
- Etc.
As they research their individual topics, they should keep the questions they posed in mind.
Unless you have a small class, students can work in pairs to do their research. Give them a short period of time and ask them to write something like 20 interesting facts about their topic while keeping the class’s inquiry questions in mind. They can then use those facts to individually write a short essay. Finally, you can create a PowerPoint using images I have collected on Pinterest. Students would finally present their information for each page orally as each image appears, sharing their presentation to the class.
Finally, close with a discussion of the original class questions. Have you answered all of them? Are there any patterns to the information? Why have elephants been so important in history? How do you feel about elephants when you are finished?
For 7 creative writing ideas, click Weighing The Elephant to download.
The story of how 200 years ago, the daughter of Lord and Lady Byron, Ada Lovelace, wrote the first program—before there was electricity to make it work. Working with Thomas Babbage on the Analytical Engine, she wrote step-by-step how Bernoulli numbers could be coded for the machine.
The fisherman in this story is fooled by his three nephews. They persuade him that they will make stone soup, then distract him at each point, in order to add real ingredients to the soup. He is
King Louis XIV ruled France (the superpower of its day) for 72 years. He had the biggest army, the biggest palace, the biggest parties and gifts, but, he was short. To compensate, he first commissions the highest throne, then the biggest wig, then the highest heels. Dancing in his new heels, he falls and is embarrassed.
In 1877, George Eastman started what was then the complicated hobby of photography. He decided to invent a camera—the Brownie—that would make it possible for everyone to take pictures and today, we can take pictures with our phones.
This picture book is a modern pourquoi story set in Nigeria. As long as the animals cooperated and were kind, life in the forest was good. But, when the dog, flooded out of his cave, attacks the leopard and takes over as king without the rest of the animals objecting. Leopard visits Thunder and a blacksmith. After he receives his claws, teeth, and roar, life would never be the same in the jungle.
In graphic novel style, we hear the story of Louis Cyr, a French-Canadian who was the “strongest man in the world.” His life story is told in flashback with some of his amazing feats of strength.
In this picture book, based on a Leo Tolstoy short story, our hero Nikolai seeks the answer to his three questions from a series of animals, ending with the wise turtle of the mountain. It is his response to a stranger’s cry for help that leads him to the answer. It’s a simple book based on three questions: What is the right time? Who is the most important one? What is the most important thing to do?
The story of Marco Polo and his trip from Venice to Beijing starting in 1271 and his return 24 years later. The illustrations are in an eastern 13th century style, with gilding and gorgeous elaborate borders all using Chinese inks. Be selective in your choices of what you read – it is a long picture book.
Diana Cruchley 