TITLE: Animals AUTHOR: Mary Ellen Gill, Cascade Elementary, WA GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT: 1 The grade level was TLC and first grade. The subject area was animals with focus on the different types of coverings and movements. OVERVIEW: Last year during the 1990/1991 school year I taught science to grades K-TLC-1-2-3 and 5. These classes were 50 minutes long and taught once a week. Kindergarten was the exception. It was taught 25 minutes once a week. The activity I am going to discuss lasted approximately three weeks but was not the entire lesson in each of those weeks. It was used as an extensions activity. PURPOSE: This activity was used as an extensions activity as we were finishing a unit on animals. We had been studying the different types of coverings they had and the different types of movements they made. Animals was an S.L.O. for our school district. OBJECTIVE: Students were to draw a picture of an animal that represented the covering or movement that was asked at the top of each page. At the top of each page was an example of what the student was to draw,ie. Animal with a Shell. This activity was given at the end of the year and although many of the students could read the words, the activity works much better if it is teacher directed. ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES: Each student was asked to complete an animal book. The front cover was to be a picture of their favorite animal.The back page was blank. The inside pages had various categories the students were asked to complete. The categories they were to complete were as follows: My Favorite Animal, Animals With Shells, Animals With Feathers, Animals With Fur, Animals With Scales. These activities covered animals and their various coverings. For animals and their movements the following categories were at the top of each page: Animals That Hop, Animals That Run, Animals That Walk, Animals That Swim and Animals That Fly. Students were to draw the animals they thought made that type of movement or had that type of covering. They could be elaborate in their drawings with backgrounds to them or they could be simple in nature. One of the best ways to do this activity as a teacher directed activity is to give a time limit of five minutes and do three or four pages at a time. RESOURCES/MATERIALS: This activity required three pieces of white construction paper that was folded in half and stapled into book form. The categories were typed at the top of each page. Students need a pencil and a crayon or marker. TYING IT ALL TOGETHER: This was the culminating activity for this unit. The activity was used as the extensions portion of O.B.E. and was used as part of the thirty points. The unit on animals was carried out one step further during the last few weeks of school. I read the book "Just The Right Place". The story is about ten animals and the stump they stay in for the winter. Our challenge was to find out if indeed all ten animals would have been in the stump for the winter or if they would have been somewhere else. We took each animal, researched it and found out that several of them would have been somewhere else during the winter. The kids loved it and learned a great deal about the animals in the story.
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John Kurilecjmk@ofcn.org