Symphony of Whales
By Steve Schuch
Illustrated by
Wendell Minor
THIS WEEK
WE WILL LEARN
Comprehension Skill Generalize
Comprehension Strategy Answer Questions
Vocabulary Strategy Context Clues
Guided Reading Groups
The setting of our story is in the Arctic.
Here is a sunrise over a frozen lake in the Arctic.
Here a ship makes a channel through the ice.
The Beluga Whales are some of the main characters in our story.
Beached
Whales
Can people communicate
with whales?
What do you think?
Skills
Generalize
• Sometimes when you read ideas about
several things you can see how they
are alike in some way. You can make a
general statement about all of them
together.
• Clue words such as most, many, all, or
few signal generalizations.
Concept Vocabulary
• field biologist an expert in the study of
life and living things who spends a lot of
time outside where animals or organisms
live or grow
• poachers people who hunt or fish
illegally
• salt marsh low-lying watery ground near
the ocean or other bodies of salt water
An Atlantic coastal salt marsh in Conneticut.
A salt marsh in the Marine Park Salt Marsh Nature
Center in Brooklyn, New York, after a snow melt.
Arctic dog sled
Vocabulary
anxiously
• uneasily; nervously
with fear of what
might happen
Tomas anxiously looked at the test—nervously.
bay
• A part of a sea
or lake partly
surrounded by
land
The moon shone over the bay-small part of the ocean.
chipped
• To cut or break
off a small thin
piece of
something
The ship chipped through the ice—broke off.
channel
• A body of water
joining two
larger bodies of
water
We took a ship across the channel—body of water.
supplies
• The food, materials,
and equipment
necessary for an
army exercise,
camping trip and so
on
Rachel helped load the supplies onto the ship--materials.
surround
• Shut in on all
sides;
encircled;
enclosed
The Beluga Whale was surrounded by people--enclosed.
neighboring
•nearby
Glashka had to find help from a neighboring
village—nearby.
blizzards
• Blinding
snowstorms with
very strong, cold
winds
Russia has many blizzards—storms with a lot of snow.
melody
• A pleasing or
easily
remembered
series of musical
notes; tune
Braden was humming a snappy melody--tune.
waterproof
• Shedding water;
a material that does
not let water
penetrate it
This man had a waterproof outfit—not allowing
water to come through.
yelping
• Crying out;
barking
The wolves were yelping outside—crying out.
symphony
• A long,
complicated
musical
composition for
an orchestra
Dolan, our music teacher, took me to a symphony-orchestra.
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
Opus number: 67
Title: Symphonie Nr. 5 c-moll
Movement: 4. Allegro
Use some of the vocabulary words
with the poster.
Polar ice packs are large areas of pack ice formed from
seawater in the Earth's polar regions, known as polar ice caps:
the Arctic ice pack (or Arctic ice cap) of the Arctic Ocean
and the Antarctic ice pack of the Southern Ocean, fringing
the Antarctic ice sheet. Polar packs significantly change their
size during seasonal changes of the year.
Salt Marsh Facts
• A salt marsh is a type of marsh that is a
transitional intertidal between land and salty
or brackish water. It is dominated by salt
tolerant plants. Salt marshes are one of the
most biologically productive habitats on the
planet. The daily tidal surges bring in
nutrients, which tend to settle in roots of the
plants within the salt marsh. The natural
chemical activity of salt allows for great
biodiversity.
United Streaming video
Animal Profiles: Killer and Beluga Whales (15:00)