56. Signs of Animals in Winter: Kindergarten and 3rd Grade NGSS Activities

Teaching elementary age children is a rewarding experience, but as educators and parents, finding the time and resources to create engaging lessons can be a challenge. That's where this podcast comes in. Welcome to Naturally Teaching Elementary.

I'm Victoria Zapplaki, a certified elementary teacher turned out to be an educator. With over a decade of experience coaching teachers and effective teaching methods, I'm passionate about teaching the whole child with authentic and placed-based experiences in school and home settings.

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Welcome back to the Naturally Teaching Elementary Podcast. My name is Victoria Zablaki, and I'm your host. So if you listen to episode 51, adapting, naturally teaching elementary updates and goals,

you heard me share that I'm restructuring how this podcast will be organized. To save me time and to streamline the information for you, I'm planning on the first week of each month

to be an episode about picture books that will help illustrate a particular natural phenomenon that could be investigated at that time of the year. The following three weeks of each month will be episodes about activities that are paired to sister grades following the next generation science standards.

So kindergarten and third, first and fourth, and second and fifth. Last week, in episode 55, I shared six books about animals in winter and the clues they lead behind. This week, I'm excited to bring you the beginning of the activities to help you teach elementary

learners of all ages about animals and what they do in the winter time. So in this episode, I'm going to describe activities for grades kindergarten and third all about signs of animals in winter. For each activity, I'll share the next generation science standard that inspired that activity, as well as the scientific phenomenon that the activity

helps explain. And make sure that you listen through to the end of the episode because even though I've paired these activities to particular standards, you may find yourself inspired to to use a similar concept for your curriculum, or even use the same activity for a different grade.

Also, if you're new to taking your students outside for learning, check out episode six, five outdoor education safety tips for teaching outside, for suggestions to make teaching outside easier.

Now let's get into these signs of animals' activities. So for kindergarten, the next generation science standard that I pulled was K-ESS3-1. Use a model to represent the relationship

between the needs of different plants and animals, including humans and the places they live. For this standard, and also for fostering curiosity in your kindergartners, I would suggest going on

an animal signs hike. What I mean by this is going outside looking for signs that animals have been here, much like in those books from episode 55.

So when you look for signs of animals, your learners have to look very closely at nature and start to infer what they think happened based on the signs they find.

Also, what's the best evidence that animals are getting everything they need to survive? finding them or the clues they leave behind. Tracks are a very easy animal sign to start with.

If you're walking outside with your students and they find tracks, follow them. Where do the tracks lead? Do the tracks look deep?

Was it a heavy animal that made them? Are they on top of the snow? Was it a light animal that made them? Did they look close together or far apart?

What do you think that means? As a disclaimer, I want to make sure that you know that you don't have to identify the tracks. Many teachers and homeschool parents are terrified

to look for tracks because they don't know what made them, but I'm a firm believer that telling a child that you don't know something is very empowering. Many children think that adults know all of the answers

and thus they need to get every question right. However, if you as an adult admit that you don't know what animal made that track, it gives your children the permission

they need to not be perfect. I will say though, follow up that exclamation with a prompt to work together to figure out the answer. This will help foster an understanding

lifelong learning in your children as well. Let's not just stop at I don't know. Let's include encouragement to work together to figure it out. Another easy to find animal sign that you can look for is SCAT, aka animal poop. Children love looking at poop. You of course will get all the exclamation of gross! You are we really

doing this and more, but SCAT can tell you a lot about the animal that left it behind and kids are here for it. When looking at SCAT you can ask are there a lot of plant parts in the scat. Are there any animal parts as big or small? Is it made of spheres or is it long and cylindrical? Is it brown, green or black? All these clues can get you closer to identifying

who don't it and who is active in the winter time. It can also help you identify one of the animal needs that the standard address is, which is food. What are these animals finding to eat in the season of scarcity? As it heads up, some kids may be too interested in scat, so I suggest being prepared to redirect their need to get real close and use the super scientific tool of a stick to poke

and prod it, if they must. Some other signs to look for that don't immediately grab the onlookers attention would be brows, which are places that plant eaters have nipped buds off a plant, think deer and rabbits. You could also look for buck rubs depending on the time of year. You could look for holes in the snow and dirt, which could be squirrels digging up their cache from

from the fall, a bunch of small branch clippings under hamlocks, spruces, furs, pines, oaks, maples, and alms, pine cone scales pulled off of pine cones and strewn in the snow, cocoons and logs, or stuck to trees,

praying mantis eggcases and stems, trees, fences, or buildings,