Reading Level: 3
Grade Level: 3-5
Book Summary: The story of a young girl’s first chance to go owling with her father. The girl learns that to go owling you must be very quiet, make your own heat, and be brave, but most of all, you must have hope. Her own hope is rewarded with the sighting of a Great Horned Owl. The story is beautifully illustrated with pictures and sensory language that create the mood of a moonlit winter night.

Goal: To lead the children to become engaged with the text by using (1) their background knowledge and experiences, (2) various levels of questioning, and (3) computer web sites.
 

Prereading Activities:
1- Author Study (http://www.ipl.org/youth/AskAuthor/Yolen.html)

2-Vocabulary: owling stained sighed echo meadow
hooted pumped statues pointy woolen

3. Owls: List what students know about owls.

4. Complete the first part of the Anticipation Guide for Owl Moon.

5. Listening: Challenge the students to listen carefully to identify the special things the girl has to do on her owling adventure. List them on chart paper entitled “Owling Rules.”
 

Post-reading Activities:

Language: Identify nouns, verbs and adjectives in the story.

Art: Let the illustrations for Owl Moon inspire the children to create their own snow-covered landscape using white paints on dark blue paper.
Materials needed: dk. blue paper white tempera paint
2-3 paint brushes clear or white glitter

Writing:
-Ask children to write several sentences or a paragraph on lined paper to describe his/her winter scene. Make use of nouns, verbs, and adjectives discussed in the reading.
-Write a short story about an owl or an owl hunt.
-Write a sensory poem about an owl or owl hunting.
 

Bulletin Board: Display the winter landscapes from “artwork” and the descriptive writing from “writing” on a bulletin board entitled “Wintry Writing.” Use a dark blue or black background and an icicle border.

Study Guides:
1- QAR Study Guide
2- Anticipation Study Guide
3- K-W-L Chart about Owls
 

Web sites:
-Read a Haitian story called “The Story of the Owl”
(http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mmbt/www/percussion/owl-story.html)

-Find out more about owls
Jennifer’s Owl Page (http://oz.uc.edu/~verriljr/)

-Look up Raptor Facts
(http://www.raptor.cvm.umn.edu/newwebdev/raptor/rfacts/rfacts.html)

-Eastern Screech Owl (Click on Photo Album to view album of owls)
(http://ntcnet.com/~tekwar)
 

Science:
-Learn vocabulary words about owls. (owlet, falcon, falconeer, raptor,etc.)
-Make a collage or draw pictures of different kinds of owls.
-Make a Venn Diagram comparing the Great Horned Owl to another owl.
-Have a state park ranger speak to the class about owls.
-Discuss the differences between diurnal and nocturnal creatures.
-Discuss senses the characters used while hunting owls at night.

Literature:
-Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost and Susan Jeffers.
-Good Night, Owl! by Pat Hutchinson
-The Man Who Could Call Down Owls by Eve Bunting
-Owl Babies by Martin Waddell
-There’s An Owl in the Shower by Jean Craighead George
-Owl at Home by Arnold Lobel