Actual Size by Steven Jenkins
Other books/resources for further reading:
What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? by Steve Jenkins
See if you can guess what kinds of animals belong to the tails shown on the pages of this book.
What’s Smaller Than a Pygmy Shew? and Is The Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is? by Robert E. Wells
In What’s Smaller… the reader finds out that there are very, very small living things. On the other hand,
his other book, Wells gives the reader a relative size of many large things.
Book Extension Activities:
Math Extensions:
The length, height, and weight are given for each animal featured in this book. Create a graph showing
the different animals and how they compare to each other.
Measure and draw the actual size of your body. Pick a body part or your whole body and draw it in
“actual size” to see how it compares to some of the animals in the book. For example, how big is your
eye compared to the giant squid?
Discuss terms of measurement and show the actual sizes that are given in the book. For example, the
brown bear is 13 feet tall. How many children is that standing on top of each other?
For preschoolers, print out pictures of the same item in different sizes and have the children sort them in
size order on a clothesline.
Art/Language Arts:
The artwork in this book is paper collage. Create a paper collage of an animal or an animal in its natural
habitat.
Create masks to wear based on the animals in the book.
Science:
Research where these animals live. Take a blank map of the world and record the continents or bodies
of water where the animals are found. How many of these animals can be found in North America?
Categorize the animals in the book into animal groups (mammals, reptiles, insects, etc.). Which group
has the most? Then, list the ones that are herbivores (plant eaters) and carnivores (meat eaters). Which
group has the most?
Play a guessing game by describing one of the animals in the book. The children have to guess which
animal is being described. Or, have the children create a lift-the-flap game that features information
about the animal on the outside of the flap and a picture of the animal under the flap.
Field Trip:
Take a trip to the zoo to see some of these animals in their “actual size.”
Writing Extensions:
Pretending you are a newspaper reporter, write a feature article on one of the animals in the book and
create a visual aid to include in the report.
http://lfpl.org/teenpages/extensions.htm