Soundprints Teaching Guides Published by Soundprints Age Group: Adults Type: Teaching Tools License: free for teachers

SOUNDPRINTS provides storybooks with educational aids. As children listen to the audio tapes, they learn to recognize the written words on the page. Each storybook is reviewed for accuracy by professionals at the Smithsonian Institute or The Nature Conservancy.

Education professionals are offered the opportunity to download teaching guides for each of the 5 series in Adobe .pdf format. Completion of a form is required to gain download access - fields that need to be filled in include, teacher's name, school name, address and phone number.

Each of the guides includes individual and group activities that are designed to help teachers develop interdisciplinary connections to these natural science trade books - for example a reader's notebook, library excursions, a trip to an art museum, story strings and use of rhymes. Each guide covers different focus areas as described below. Each focus area includes story summaries & reading comprehension questions about the storybooks - all the books in the series (and their prices) are listed at the end of each guide - and also more general information.

The Smithsonian Oceanic Collection guide is intended for pre-school to grade 2. It includes a focus on whales and dolphins, for example covering echolocation (the ability that whales and dolphins have to 'see' their surroundings with the help of sounds. It also discusses seals, sea lions and walruses; threatened and endangered animals; unusual sea animals like the clown anemonefish, lobster and octopus; and the shark.

Smithsonian's Backyard for pre-school to grade 2 has as focus areas birds; bugs; chipmunks, squirrels and woodchucks; fawn; and nocturnal animals.

The Smithsonian Wild Heritage Collection is for kindergarten to grade 3. It covers the coastal Atlantic; the Grand Canyon; the Great Plains; the Northern Wilderness; and Wild Alaska.

The Nature Conservancy is aimed at grades 1 to 4. Its focus areas are a Chinese forest habitat; a desert habitat; a rainforest habitat; Antarctic habitat; an Alaskan habitat; and a coral reef habitat.

The Smithsonian Odyssey is for grades 2 to 5. It covers a golden age (1945); wonders of the world; completion of the first transcontinental railroad; the mysterious disappearance of Amelia Earhart; Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon; and pony express riders.

While these teaching guides are intended to be used with the storybooks, they include some great ideas and information that are valuable on their own.

Download Details

Requires:
Acrobat Reader

Filesize: about 500K for each download

Download Sites:

US : Go to Soundprints and click on 'Teaching Tools' to fill in the form and download.