The Day the Turtles Came Home
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Blurb
This moving story is based on a true event. Tendaji takes his grandma for one last trip to her beloved beach to see the turtles before she goes blind. But when they get there, the beach is full of rubbish. During his determination to make things better, he meets an old friend and makes new ones. When he brings grandma back, there is more than just a clean beach which greets her. A beautiful and inspiring story to engage your children in global environmental issues. (For ages 5 - 12)
Each book can be personally addressed and signed by the author.
Each book can be personally addressed and signed by the author.
Themes from the Book
Teaching Ideas
Pick out all the verbs (see table below for verbs used)
Good vocabulary collected from the story.
- There are so many activities you can do with the words. You can put each word on an individual card and ask the pupils to sort them into any group. Or you could get them to put them into pairs. All these activities are to familiarise the pupils with the reading and spelling of the words. With the words you can ask the pupils to write the verb as the continuous or past tense or present tense. Can they find synonyms for certain words such as ‘shouted’ etc. Can they sort them into words that are used to express speech - whispered, and those that denote action – snorting, skipped, hauling etc. There are so many fun ways to use the vocabulary. This is really important as it helps the children decode the words, understand their meanings and then apply them in their writing. You can also find pictures of the word or actions to act out which they can then match. Pupils can find the route words
- In the second group of words you can ask the pupils to put in to word class e.g. adverbs/adjectives/nouns. Or build on the route word e.g. happy – unhappy – happiness – unhappiness – happily – unhappily
- Use 10 of the verbs to make a story of their own. Use the action words for charades.
- Pupils structure the story – Tendaji takes grandma to the beach to see her turtles – they arrive but the beach is full of rubbish – Tendaji takes grandma home but returns to clean the beach etc,
- Could the story be structured in a different way?
- Research - Which animals are effected by marine litter? And how? Where does the litter come from? What are micro-plastics? And why are they so dangerous? Which organisations around the world are helping marine animals?
- How could you raise money for these charities? How could you educate people about the consequences of dropping litter?
- Create fact files on whales, dolphins, turtles, sting rays or animals of the pupils’ choice. Categories could include – habitat, food, population, whether they are endangered, different species such as leatherback turtle/green turtle, unusual facts, adaptations to their environment, distribution, breeding, videos etc. This can be then created in a PPT and presented to the class or another class.
- Act it out - https://dramaresource.com/drama-strategies/
- Map out the story and retell it in own words. Follow a story mountain. Write their own story using the same story mountain.
- Study turtles, whales and dolphins and write a report on them. You could include a letter from them to humans asking us to change our ways.
- Raise money to adopt a turtle - https://www.mcsuk.org/shop/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=75
- Make a turtle out of clay. Create different designs on the shell. Or draw a blank picture of a turtle and the pupils design the shell https://www.ecosia.org/images?q=blank+turtle+outline
- Where does the marine rubbish come from? How does it enter the sea? https://greenpeace.org.uk/plastic-end-ocean/
- https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluting-our-oceans-comes-from-just-10-rivers/
- https://wastelandrebel.com/en/how-on-earth-does-all-the-plastic-get-into-the-oceans/- good mockumentary on a plastic bag. This could be simulated by the pupils.
- What are the themes of the story? Love, friendship, caring for the environment, consequences, the bond of family, the beauty of nature, finding solutions, carrying on despite all the obstacles, taking responsibility, working together achieves great things, never giving up and having a big goal and achieving it.
- Pick out exciting words and phrases – lumbering, haul, brave souls charging towards etc. Pick out the verbs and write a short story using them. It could be any story but if its about the environment all the better.
- Poems - http://www.oocities.org/heartland/1133/animalpoems/turtles.html
- Art - tessellation - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/385409680589600512/
- Track how far a turtle travels on a world map, where they travel to and all the different species – children devise a PPT presentation on facts about turtles (what they eat, where they travel, different kind of species and where they are found, facts about hatchlings (e.g. only around 1 in every 1000 survive till adulthood and the temperature of the egg will determine its gender), threats they face, what can be done to help them, how this will affect other marine creatures, amazing facts such as turtles have been around for about 215 million years etc
- Some good websites – Surfers Against Sewage (https://www.sas.org.uk) The Marine Conservation (https://www.mcsuk.org) and Plastic Oceans (https://plasticoceans.uk). Some videos - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=plastics+in+the+ocean+david+attenborough+
- PSHE – resilience – never giving up, giving back to the community and the environment, helping each other, bullying, resourcefulness, respect for each other and nature.