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BATS ON PARADE
By Kathi Appelt
Illustrated by Melissa Sweet
(HarperCollins, 1999)
Classroom Ideas
When I was in high school, I played flute in the marching band. I loved
being in the band, wearing my marching uniform and the tall hat with a
feather in it. Our band also wore spats on our shoes, just like the piccolo
players in the Marching Bat Band. Some of my best memories of high school
are centered around my experiences in band, and even today, whenever I
watch a parade, my heart beats a little faster when the high school bands
march by.
One of the most thrilling journeys I ever took was when our band was
invited to march in the Rose Bowl Parade on New Year's Day in 1972. It
was a real highlight of my tenure in high school. To get to travel on
an airplane all the way from Houston to Los Angeles was such fun. I'll
never forget it.
MATH
The basis for this book is multiplication. Melissa Sweet and I have
tried hard to give our young readers a strong visual way to see how sets
work. Our hope is that they'll be able to clearly see the way the bats
line up and form their own sections.
We also took the entire band and counted them up, so your students can
use this book for double and triple digit addition too.
MUSIC
- Invite members of your local high school band to visit your classroom,
one member from each of the different instrument sections (e.g. one
flute player, one French horn player, etc…) to demonstrate their
different instruments.
- Look for CDs that feature these individual instruments and share them
with your students.
- Check out a copy of the movie, THE MUSIC MAN, and watch the scenes
with the marching band.
- If you have 385 students in your school, then why not have your own
parade?
- What other kinds of "groups" could you make up to form a
parade? Jungle animals? Barnyard creatures? Fruits and vegetables? Wouldn't
it be fun to have a Snack Food parade?
LANGUAGE ARTS
- Use this book to show examples of alliteration, i.e. "pipers
with spats," "classy cadets," "drum corps collection,"
etc…
- Look for other examples of wordplay-"Bat Masterson and Cleobatra."
- Use this book to talk about rhyme and how much fun it can be.
SCIENCE & NATURAL HISTORY
- One of the things that inspired me to write this book was standing
on the Congress Street Bridge in Austin, TX where close to a million
bats nest during the warm summer nights. Every evening right at sunset,
the Mexican Freetail Bats emerge in a continuous stream of "bats
on parade." The bridge is the site of our country's largest urban
bat colony. Are there any bat colonies in your area? What kinds of bats
are in your region? Do they hibernate? Migrate? In what ways are they
important to your locale?
- In North and South America, bats have often been misunderstood and
treated with fear and contempt. However, in some of the Asian countries,
bats are considered the bearers of blessings and a sign of good luck.
In what ways might a bat bring good luck? What other animals represent
good fortune?
SOCIAL STUDIES
- Parades and marching bands have played important roles in many cultures
and still do. Many countries that are dominated by military regimes
have regular military parades, used not only to impress their citizens,
but to intimidate them as well.
- Others use parades to celebrate special holidays; here in the United
States, we most often have parades on the 4th of July and New Year's
Day. Does your area have an annual parade of some sort? What does it
celebrate? Who are the participants? Where I live, we have a Christmas
Parade. The favorites in our Christmas Parade are always the "Low
Riders," those funny cars with the hydraulic systems that make
them bounce up and down.
- Most universities and high schools have marching bands to support
their football teams and to provide half-time entertainment. Plan a
field trip to go watch one of these games--pay particular attention
to the band.
- John Philip Sousa was our country's most famous composer of marches.
Have your students do some research about him and then give a report.
Listen to his most popular marches--most of your students will probably
recognize "Stars and Stripes Forever."
If you have any other good ideas for using this book, please send them
to me care of HarperCollins ChildrenÕs Books, 1350 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, NY 10019 or email them to
Thank You!
Kathi Appelt
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