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BAYOU LULLABY
By Kathi Appelt
Illustrated by Neil Waldman
(HarperCollins, 1995)
Classroom Ideas
LANGUAGE ARTS
- Bayou Lullaby uses many Cajun terms, which come mostly from French
words. Share the words in the glossary at the beginning of the book
with your students. Do they sound at all like their English definitions?
What are some words that are common in our English language that are
based on French words?
- A lullaby is a bedtime song. What other lullabies do you know?
- This book is written almost entirely in quatrains, four line stanzas.
Use it to demonstrate the difference between other poetic forms, such
as couplets and limericks. Have the children try their hands at their
own quatrains.
- Read it to little ones right before naptime!
MUSIC
- The Cajun people are famous for their spicy food and lively music.
Why not share some of both with your students? There is a wonderful
collection of famous Cajun songs, performed by excellent musicians,
called Cajun Music and Zydeco. It's produced by Rounder Records and
can be ordered at any music store. DonÕt forget to dance.
- A lullaby is meant to be sung. Have your students try putting the
text of this book to a melody. They might wish to use one of the stanzas
as a chorus, or they could write their own.
SOCIAL STUDIES
- The Cajuns are descendants of a group of French people from Nova
Scotia in Newfoundland off the northern Atlantic coast of North America.
They were called Acadians. They migrated south to escape persecution
and settled primarily in the wetlands of southern Louisiana and eastern
Texas, but also along the entire Gulf Coast area. Compare the Cajuns
with other groups who left their original homes for a safer haven.
- Read Longfellow's famous poem, "Evangeline" to get a sense
of the history of the Cajuns. Evangeline, though fictional, became a
sort of hero. However, she was said to be based on a real person. Who
was that? How closely do fact and fiction match?
- What are some of the customs and traditions of the Cajun people?
- In what ways did the Cajuns learn to adapt to their marshy home?
GEOGRAPHY & SCIENCE
- The bayou country of the southern states is one of the most mysterious
and misunderstood regions of the country. Swampy and dark, they were
long considered "useless." We are just now beginning to see
the value of these important wetlands. Use this book to discuss swamps
and their role as a habitat.
- Name the animals and plants that appear in Bayou Lullaby. What other
plants and animals can be found in the swamp?
- How do swamps occur? What other kinds of wetlands are there?
- The swamps are rich in many resources--can you name some of them?
- Every continent has some kind of swamp or wetland; some are quite
famous. On a map or atlas, see if you can locate these: the Everglades,
the Big Thicket, the Great Dismal Swamp, the English Moors, etc. Are
there swamps in Africa? India? France? What about Australia?
- In Florida, the bayous are known as "Blackwater Country"
because the decaying vegetation forms tannin and turns the water black.
In Minnesota, where there is so much iron ore, many of the lakes and
streams are red. What color is the water in some of the streams and
lakes near you? What gives them that color?
- Where bayous run into the sea, the water is often "brackish,"
a mixture of saltwater and fresh. What plants and animals thrive in
this kind of water?
CREATIVE WRITING
- Pretend you are drifting down the bayou in your pirougue. What would
you see? Write a story about your journey.
- Imagine that you were a pioneer, one of the Acadians who moved from
Nova Scotia to Louisiana. Write a journal about your adventure. Write
a letter to someone you left behind, telling him or her all about your
new home.
- Write your own lullaby or song about a place you love. Include the
native animals from that place.
- What if King Armand really were a king? Can you write a story about
him?
- People used to think that monsters lived in the swamp. Make up a story
about a swamp monster!
P.S. If you have any other good ideas for ways to use this book in the
classroom, please let me know. You can write me care of HarperCollins
Children's Books, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019 or email
me at
.
(Of course, the best way to use this book is right before bedtime with
a child you love!)
Enjoy!
Kathi Appelt
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