Carlos and the Squash Plant
Carlos
is a young boy who works out in the garden all day for his parents. He gets
very dirty. His mom speaks Spanish to him and tells him if you don’t clean your
ears good you will grow a squash. He tells his mom he took his bath but he
really doesn’t he begin to grow a squash which started small. He went about 3
days without washing his body, he would clean his face and tell his mom he took
a bath but every day the squash grew bigger. He eventually took a bath which
solved everything.
This
book is a great book because it in English and Spanish. From the story line you
can gather so much and can create so many different activities. The
illustrations were so good and go perfect with the New Mexican cultural that
the book has.
For
younger children you can touch on the health aspect of taking a bath and making
sure you are clean. Demonstrate how important it is to wash your hands. An
activity is to spray cooking oil on the hands and then sprinkle cinnamon on top
of the hands. Tell the kids to try to get the cinnamon (germs) off their hands.
The objective is to get kids to realize they need warm soapy water to get the
cinnamon off, just like germs.
For older kids, this can be a science lesson. Kids
can learn “The Sequence of Growth.” Carlos talking about how to squash looked
in his ear as it grew… The activity is to make photo copies of the sequences of
a squash growing and have groups put them in order according to how Carlos
described it.
