My Home on the Ice

Bibliography
Lewis, J. P. (2017). My home on the ice. New York, NY: Children’s Press, an Imprint of Scholastic.

Plot Summary

This book is a collection of facts about Earth’s poles and the animals that live on them; told in little rhyming poems. The poems include information about some of the most popular polar animals and how they survive the cold temperatures.

Critical Analysis

This collection of poems has a mixture of rhythmic patterns consisting of four short lines each. Each poem follows an ABAB rhyming scheme that include tidbits of arctic animal information. The rhyming pattern flows easily and makes it appealing and exciting to learn with.

Some poems contain figurative language such as metaphors “I am the king of the iceberg” when referring to the polar bear, and personification “he changes his clothes” when referring to how the arctic fox changes its coat color with the seasons. The poems are interchangeably written in 1^st and 3^rd person, adding to its appeal. And they portray fun emotions with their upbeat rhythm and rhyme.

The photographs play a big role in this book as the words form images for the reader, and the cool tones of the photographs parallel those images. The pages also consist of fun fact bubbles to add to the arctic life theme of the book making it a fun way for K-3 kids to learn interesting arctic facts.

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Connections

·         students can use SSIFT strategies to identify the many qualities that make up poems (Structure, Sound, Imagery, Figurative language, Theme)

·         students can create a fun fact poster to present to the class with information taken from the text

·         students can find one more arctic animal using the internet and create their own four-line rhyming poem containing facts