Animal Adaptations: Camouflage

Last week I wrote about two of my animal research units, vertebrates and invertebrates.  Well, not every unit I teach is done in isolation; I like to make connections and spiral back and blur the lines between topics whenever it's conducive to learning.  One lesson that can really go in either unit, so it tends to end up either in the middle the animal units or after both is my lesson on camouflage.  This is one of those projects that I look forward to every year because the kids get a constant reminder of it.

I start out by asking the kids to each pick a "spot" in the room that will become a "habitat" for an animal.  Then we color our paper to look like the spot.  As an example I color a wood grain pattern on my paper to look like my door.  I layer on color to make it not just look brown, but the right shade of almost orange-y brown.

Next, I challenge kids to think about what type of animal might live there.  A moth could spend some time on the door.  A bird might be found up by the ceiling.  What adaptations make both of those animals suited for being up high?

Then I have students fold their paper in half.  I instruct them to draw their animal on one half of the white side of their paper.  I check their drawings before they cut, otherwise some will mistakenly draw half a butterfly thinking they're doing a symmetry project instead of getting 2 separated animals in the end!

After completing a processing sheet that requires them to describe their habitat, animal, and its adaptations, I let them tape their animal to its "spot" (unless it's out of reach, in which case I climb things to make it work).

I put each animal's "twin" on a poster.  This year I took it a step further, and put them in a zoo!  I was hoping it would spark discussion and concern for caged animals as opposed to those still in the wild, but this group didn't take the bait.  Maybe next year.  On the other hand, one of my students who doesn't always shine in every academic area referred to the matching animals, not as twins, but as doppelgangers!  I was so shocked and impressed with that vocabulary word that I included it on the poster.  :D

The animals are left up all year round as a teaser.  Soon we'll be be ready to clean our room and it will be a nice reminder of an activity they did "a long time ago."  I treat it like a scavenger hunt.  "Can anyone find a camouflaged animal that is NOT their own?"  At the end, any animals that are only visible to their creator are deemed the most well adapted and thus the winners! 

The hawk IS there, but very hard to see!

As an added bonus this year, just two days after we completed this activity, one of our neighborhood wildlife friends, a hawk, came for a visit at recess.  By which I mean it came in a little too close for (my) comfort!  Normally they're overhead, or in a tree on the edge of the grounds, but this one came in on a very low branch to sit and watch the children (shudder).  Now, some of the kids had trouble seeing it and so, you guessed it, my students started arguing.  It went down like this:

"I don't see it!"
"It's right there!"
"You're lying."
"No, I'm not, it's really there!"
"It IS.  You just can't see it because it's camouflaged!  Right Mrs. Thomas?"

I think they've got it.

Classifying Invertebrates, "Playing" with Clay!

With state testing over here in Massachusetts, I feel like a weight has been lifted.  Sure, I still have nearly a whole month left with my fourth graders (and reading all over the teacher-blogosphere about people who are out already) but at least now I feel like I can just relax and enjoy my class a bit more.  And the way I do that without actually losing them for the last several weeks is to allocate extra time to the content areas!  Math and ELA, you get to take a back seat for now.  Make way for some science! 

After our unit on vertebrates (which I blogged about yesterday) I delved into our unit on invertebrates.  Although our book reverses the order, I think it's better to start with the familiar.  And I'm sure kids have more experience with our furry friends the mammals than they do with sea sponges.  Plus I enjoy getting questions from those deep thinkers who ask, as we are classifying animals into five categories, "What about ants.  Aren't they animals?"  It leads to great discussions when it comes time to rationalize why a sponge is an animal!

We start out as we did with the vertebrates, by classifying animals by their body covering.  That is, they learn about animals with and without an exoskeleton.  To drive the point home, we use CLAY!!

The exoskeleton is represented with tin foil.  It's not the easiest fine motor task, but of course the activity can be differentiated by assigning certain kids the worm.  They feel successful while the kids who like a challenge work with me on how to manipulate the foil. 

 

We did further research on key traits of various invertebrates on a scope and sequence chart. 

Next I reinforced the concept of the T chart with kids.  They were learning about how to compare and contrast in reading, and that was a perfect segue into how insects and arachnids are similar and different.  Then finally we honed in on how to classify 2 types of invertebrates, insects and arachnids.

They used the T charts to create captioned pictures for our hall display (Top tip:  Use paperclips to easily change out papers throughout the year!  Although it worked better with 2 clips, not one center one because they droop over time).

The checklist of expectations appears on the left below, while a close up might look something like my example (below on the right) that I used to help students evaluate their own work:

The kids have fun with our animal units, and although Common Core likes to take credit for weaving writing throughout the content areas, it's something I've been doing since I've started teaching (don't we all?).

If you're interested in this unit, I have my invertebrates unit available as a complete package deal in my TPT store.

Vertebrates Unit: Classifying Animals

Now that state testing is over for fourth graders here in Massachusetts (and thanks to all the storms this year it's going to be a lonnnng June), I have felt the pressure of math and ELA lifted, and I've been fitting in more science and social studies into our days.  I also looked over my blog topics over this past year and I was shocked to find I have not posted a SINGLE piece on science!  I actually DO teach science, really!  So I decided to  start at the beginning share a topic that I love to teach the kids:  Animals!  More specifically we begin by studying the traits of, and classifying vertebrates. 

We start out with a study guide.  Instead of waiting until the end of the unit to tell kids what their test will be on, I give them a one page sheet at the beginning of the unit.  It has all the vocabulary concepts and examples that we are going to work on over the course of the unit.  Some kids like to check off each topic as we cover it.

Next, we talk about the stages of the life cycle for all vertebrates.  This eases kids into the year because who doesn't love to draw their favorite baby animal? 

Then we complete a concept map for vocabulary words including habitat, appendages, body covering,  and adaptations.  

My poster board is in sad shape unfortunately, but only because it's been so useful over the years for both science and social studies concepts.  I'm not sure yet if I want to create a new one on poster board (the kids complain that laminated posters are hard to read because of the glare, and I don't blame them) or some sort of shower board project from the hardware store.  We'll see!

But back to vertebrates.  Next we start our research, checking off which characteristics animals have when it comes to the above traits.

 

 

I often alternate colors to help students track on the board, and they've also let me know that the lines are helpful, so I started doing this consistently this year as well. 



One thing I love about fourth grade is some kids are starting to be able to verbalize what they need in order to be successful, and they advocate for themselves!

Then we begin research on student generated topics on adaptations, such as why birds can fly and why snakes don't need appendages other than their tails.  


I usually group students by their selected topics, and they do an oral presentation to the class about their findings.  

I'm not usually a fan of oral presentations, but when it comes to animals students are usually so interested in the topic that they can overcome their shyness to share. 

Finally, my favorite part of our unit is to create our own animals!  They need to decide if its a mammal, fish, amphibian, bird or reptiles, and have the correct traits, but otherwise they can be as creative as they like!  Yet I can still assess which students can apply what they know about the characteristics of each of the animal classes.

The unit that follows is on invertebrates, which I have written about over on my other blog.  So if you're interested in more animal activities, check out my post tomorrow!  Also, if you're interested in getting these activities and more in a package deal, I have this vertebrate unit over at my TPT store.