Activities & Resources:

Language Arts:

• Listen to three poems from The Canyon’s Edge (3:44): WATCH

• Choose an object and write a concrete poem: CREATE

• Nora loves writing haikus because they feel “orderly...patterned.” Write your own haikus.

• Haikus aren’t the only poems found in this novel. Pick one of the chapters and use that style/format of the poem to write your own. Some suggestions of poems you can imitate are:

  •  “Eight Seconds” (pg. 34),

  • “What If?” (pg. 59), 

  • “But” (pg. 63), 

  • “Lie” (pg. 81), 

  • “Grounding” (pg. 104).

• Give your class the chance to shine with this Reader's Theater Script

Art:

• Make canyon paintings. Use this lesson as a starting point: VIEW

• Nora makes a haiku about patterns and mentions apophenia or the condition of seeing patterns between unrelated things. Go out with a camera and search for patterns, like in the clouds, on the sidewalk, or in the

school hallway. From Psychology Today, see Being Amused by Apophenia.

Science:

• Learn more about the ecosystem of the canyons in Arizona. What is a slot canyon? What flora and

fauna are commonly found there?

• One reason Nora can survive in the canyon is the education she has received from her parents

about the desert. Pick a biome and learn more about how to survive in your biome. What items would

you need? What would be the dangers? If you lost all your supplies, how would you be able to survive?

Floods

• Learn about rain and floods: Weather Wiz Kids.

• Learn how floods are formed: National Geographic Kids

• Flash flood facts: Kiddle

• Flooding explained (4:05): WATCH

• Why do floods happen? (3:41): WATCH

Slot Canyons

• Inside a slot canyon in Arizona (8:11): WATCH

Climbing

• 11-year-old climber (8:34): WATCH

• Everything you will need to rock climb (5:21): WATCH

• Learn more about rock climbing, rappelling, and belaying. Practicing tying some of the knots you need to know to do these activities. For a guide to tying knots:, LEARN

Grief & Loss

• Grief drawing activity: WATCH

-'Thanks to the Texas Bluebonnet Award for many of these Resources