Craft Lesson #5: Yum! MmMm! Que Rico!

Western Hemisphere Geography and Haiku Practice

Targeted age Group:

Second Grade

Introduction:

Learning geography can be dull and difficult because it is simply memorization. When given meaningful facts about a location it is easier to remember and recognize.

How to teach it:

When reading the book Yum! MmMm! Que Rico! you learn about food from different parts of North America, South America, and Central America. After reading this book have the class sit in front of a large map print out of the Americas. Have prepared cut outs of all the different food talked about in the book. For each cut out read the page that corresponds to it. Then have the children locate the country or countries that produce that food according to the book on a globe. As for a volunteer to stick the cut out on the country that it is made in (be prepared with more than one cut out if the food is produced in more than one place) The student may also write the name of the country on the blank map with a marker. Go through all of the foods in the book and make additional food cut outs. Research before hand where your addional cut outs are from and make your own description of them to read to the class.

You can also make this lesson into one about haikus. After teaching the class about the structure of haiku poetry you can have them make their own haikus about the additional foods that you added onto the lesson. An additional thing to do is to make a book out of the poems even having students color the pages. The book can be a classroom sequel to Yum! MmMm! Que Rico!!!

Another fun activity to add to this lesson would be to actually bring the food for the children to sample if your school allowed.

Resources:
Mora, Pat. Yum! MmMm! Que Rico! Illus. Rafael Lopez. New York: Lee and Low Books Inc., 2007.