Our animal unit provided the perfect opportunity for me to teach the kids "The Butterfly Song". (Does anyone else have good memories of singing this classic from Psalty the Singing Songbook as a kid?) I love this song and teach it every time I have a chance to a group of kids!
I read a couple of books to the kids to discuss different aspects of animals. This book focuses on baby animals.
Reading the book -- notice how Norah doesn't seem to be paying attention very well. She was VERY difficult that morning... she spent a lot of the morning in her room for time-out. GRRRRR!
After reading Is Your Mama a Llama? I quizzed the kids to see if they knew the names of various animal babies. For a treat, the kids received animal crackers if they knew the right answers (a little bribery never hurts, right?)
Passing out the reward
Our next book was this lesser-known one by Eric Carle. It was a fun book to get the kids up and going as it asked the kids to do the actions for several different animals (Can you thump your chest like a gorilla or stomp like an elephant?)
After our books, I had the older kids watch a short video from a great website called Brain-Pop. The video taught the kids how to classify animals as vertebrates or invertebrates. It also discussed some of the characteristics of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and fish... a good introduction to how animals are classified.
Another fun activity was to put little animal grow-capsules in water to see what they turned out to be. After the video the kids were ready for a little diversion!
While the older kids were watching the video, the younger kids colored and did an activity where they had to match animal babies with their mothers.
The last thing we did that morning was for me to explain and give an example of how to do their animal report. I had gotten some guidelines from one of the kindergarten teachers at CVC -- I'm excited to see what the kids come up with in a month! For their reports, they have to research and find facts about their animal, memorize at least 3 of their facts for an oral presentation, draw a picture of their animal, and "make" their animal using clay, paper mache, toilet paper rolls, etc... In the picture (above) the kids are looking through several animal books I had gotten from the library.
Daniel has been fascinated with wolves for awhile, so that was his pick for his animal report. Here, he and Joshua have discovered a shared interest and are perusing a book about wolves.
Passing out the reward
Our next book was this lesser-known one by Eric Carle. It was a fun book to get the kids up and going as it asked the kids to do the actions for several different animals (Can you thump your chest like a gorilla or stomp like an elephant?)
After our books, I had the older kids watch a short video from a great website called Brain-Pop. The video taught the kids how to classify animals as vertebrates or invertebrates. It also discussed some of the characteristics of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and fish... a good introduction to how animals are classified.
Another fun activity was to put little animal grow-capsules in water to see what they turned out to be. After the video the kids were ready for a little diversion!
While the older kids were watching the video, the younger kids colored and did an activity where they had to match animal babies with their mothers.
The last thing we did that morning was for me to explain and give an example of how to do their animal report. I had gotten some guidelines from one of the kindergarten teachers at CVC -- I'm excited to see what the kids come up with in a month! For their reports, they have to research and find facts about their animal, memorize at least 3 of their facts for an oral presentation, draw a picture of their animal, and "make" their animal using clay, paper mache, toilet paper rolls, etc... In the picture (above) the kids are looking through several animal books I had gotten from the library.
Daniel has been fascinated with wolves for awhile, so that was his pick for his animal report. Here, he and Joshua have discovered a shared interest and are perusing a book about wolves. 
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