Play Animal Detectives

Even if you don’t see animals on your walk, kids can look for clues to show them what critters have been on the path before you got there.

If you are walking in nature, it can be frustrating and disappointing for children (and adults) to not see any animals roaming about the woods. Of course, I should clarify that statement by saying that we might not notice animals as opposed to saying that we might not see animals on our walk.

One, many people don’t count birds and insects as animals. They move too fast, they don’t travel in straight lines, and oftentimes we hear them but we don’t get a good look at them. Two, many animals are active between dusk and dawn when the lighting allows for them to be seen. Noon is when the day is brightest and hottest. However, you can still look for signs of the animals that have recently moved through the area you are walking at the moment.

Although we call them ‘signs’ they are anything but as obvious as the signs that people make. Animal signs can include holes in the ground and in trees, droppings, tracks, nests, chewed twigs, bent twigs, and scratched up areas of ground or leaves. You don’t need to identify the sources of these signs of animal activity but it can be fun to guess. Avoid spending a lot of time analyzing the source of each sign, as children will tire of the activity. For older children who desire some competition, award one point to the first person to notice each sign.

If children really want to learn what animals are moving around in nature, look for a tracking field guide that shows more than footprint patterns.

Twisted Learning Game about Nature

This variation on Twister helps kids review a lesson in nature identification. Whether you are playing with campers, scouts, students, or your own children and their friends, kids will be learning about nature while having fun.

The preparation for this game can take a while. Have kids make the game. If you have a classroom full of kids, divide the kids into teams of four or five. Assign each team different nature images. The entire class can focus on leaves or birds or each team can gear their game for a different aspect of nature. This way the class can create several games, allowing kids to rotate to different game stations, adding to the learning challenge.

Materials and Preparations: Start by making a game board with a rectangular vinyl tablecloth or flat bed sheet. With permanent marker, fabric marker, or acrylic paint, divide the cloth into sixteen equal blocks (four rows by four columns). Next, select four images (the tracks of four different animals, leaves for four different types of trees, four different types of birds, etc) and draw them in four different boxes scattered over the game board.

Next, you’ll need to make a spinner. Take a square of cardboard and draw a circle on the board. Divide the circle into eight sections. In each section, repeat the four images from the game board. Also, label each image as hand or foot (each image will be on the spinner twice, once for the hand and the other for feet). Poke a hole in the center of the circle and attach a cardboard arrow with a paper fastener so the arrow spins with a flick of the finger.

To play, one player takes on the role as spinner, the person who spins the spinner. This will indicate to another player where to hold their hand or foot. Players maintain this position as the spinner spins again. Rotate through the players and then start back with the first player. Continue the game until one child falls. Switch players so the person who was in charge of the spinner can play the game.

Experience the Outdoors, Don’t Just Read about It - Part Two

I’m not opposed to learning about nature from books. When I taught my first class about reptiles I went to the library and acquired a dozen books and then I went to the bookstore and bought a few more. There is a lot of general information about groups of animals that you can learn in books. I am particularly fond of learning about a topic by gathering information from children’s books – I mean here is the basic stuff you want to learn about a topic in a palatable format. Once I have an understanding of the topic, then I branch out to the adult books.

But, as I was talking about in yesterday’s blog, if you get too stuck in learning everything from books you kind of miss the point of learning about the topic. Studying, or reading, about nature in books can give you a basis of understanding what you are looking at. If you are in New England, you know the information that you read about rainforests or the Arctic doesn’t apply to the ecosystem you are in – no matter how rainy or snowy it is in the Northeast.

For kids (and adults) who memorize facts in books but never lift their head to look out a window or never take an exploratory walk in nature, they miss a big connection. You can read about a gray squirrel’s or blue jay’s behavior, but unless you experience it, the facts are flat. When you look at the way insects chew up the leaves of certain plants, the fact has more import when you look and feel those leaves.

I can read about carpenter ant nesting behaviors, but the day a tree snapped and I could watch the ants hurrying to bring the eggs and larvae to a new safe place made the facts real.

Watching a frog at a pond for 15 or 20 minutes is a different experience than diving in and grabbing it and shoving it in a critter keeper for a quarter-hour observation. I once had a group of art students draw a picture of a frog that we found in a swamp. The frog remained in the water with just its head poking out. The kids were amazed that it didn’t move. I could then bring out the book-facts – frogs don’t hop around looking for food because it would be a waste of energy.

Facts from books are important, just don’t forget to go outside and see those facts in action.

Experience the Outdoors, Don’t Just Read about It - Part One

School starts and kids get new textbooks. They sit in the classroom on the first day and look at the neat piles of books, gathering clues as to what they will be learning about during the school year. Chances are they will make regular trips to the school library, each week to get a new book. The ‘readers’ probably didn’t get to read as many books as they would have liked over the summer (“We just went to the library a few days ago; you’ll just have to wait until I have time to take you back,” says mom/dad/babysitter.) These kids will be ecstatic to roam the shelves at school. For the kids who dread reading and do so because it is an assigned chore, the weekly library visits hold less appeal.

Some of these kids, both the kids with lots of enthusiasm as well as those who are less so, pick up books about nature. Sometimes it’s a kid who loves to read everything, but more likely it is a kid who reads into a single subject and becomes an ‘expert.’ Who wouldn’t love reading about nature? The books have lots of pictures and you learn facts that are guaranteed to gross out a few adults at the dinner table.

My problem with these books is that kids tend not to pay attention to some important facts, such as where an animal is from. I’ve had third graders on field trips ask if the sanctuary they are visiting – in New England – has black mamba snakes, jaguars, primates, and a whole host of other animals. At first, I thought kids were joking, I mean, when was the last time they saw a spider monkey hanging from the backyard bird feeder?

But, no, because they had read about these animals and how they lived in wild places and our 2000-acre suburban sanctuary seems wild to the kids, so, well, we must have Wild Animals. I remember one ten year old boy that adored snakes and was a fount of information about snakes. He would recite facts about snakes (to the point that he annoyed and bored his classmates) in a superior fashion – that I didn’t know about all of these snakes he saw as a down falling in both my intelligence and training.

However, he would run off into the shrub and come back saying that he just saw snake X – a snake that could not live in New England. At one point I saw the common garter snake he was chasing after, but he identified it as something more exotic. His classmates looked at me with some anxiety as I explained the identity of the snake; all while their fellow student argued.

I named the snakes that lived in Massachusetts and told this boy that those were the animals that he could choose from when trying to determine which animal he saw. Oh, but he had read about these other snakes and he knew I must be wrong …. (continued)

Kid Science for Parents

Are you intimidated by the idea of going into nature with your child because you don’t know a lot about nature? It really isn’t necessary to know a lot about nature in order to enjoy it. Although I am an environmental educator, I’ve come to believe that it is more important to simply go outside and experience nature with your senses than it is to identify trees and birdsong and expound on the process of photosynthesis.

However, some facts are useful. For example, frogs, toads, and turtles, when picked up, will release a prodigious stream of urine to make them less appetizing to the creature that picked them up. (Remember, although we could use our hands, most creatures would have scooped up these critters into their mouths. – There is a fun fact that’s sure to be a hit with the kids!) So, where is a parent to start?

Go to the juvenile section of your public library. Don’t go crazy trying to learn a little bit of everything in a week. Pick a topic that is a favorite with your child – birds, frogs, insects. Now, these books aren’t for your child, they aren’t for you to read to your child; these books are for you to read. Don’t belittle starting with kids’ books these will give you a lot of the basics that you need to build on. Flip through a few books for grades 1 and 2, if they seem simplistic then go with books for grades 3 through 5.

Fourteen years ago when I started my switch into the environmental field, I didn’t have a science background (I was an English major who then taught English classes). Science books for adults were overwhelming. So, I’d go to the library and read a dozen or so books on a topic and then go off and teach about the topic.

The more you read about a topic the more sense it will make. The first time you learn a fact, it just kind of floats around in your mind wondering where to rest. When you see the same information numerous times it becomes easier to both remember those facts and learn new facts. Other advantages to reading science books for kids is that they are a quick read and they have lots of pictures – and even adults can appreciate that!

The Colors of Nature

Color activities work with children of all ages. With younger children, looking at the colors in nature helps to teach them their colors as they learn that “red” isn’t always the red in a box of Crayola crayons. With older children and preteens, color activities become more art-based and noticing nature can help this more independent bunch learn how to combine colors in their clothing or their rooms.

Rainbow Hunt – For a color activity that doesn’t require any props, simply challenge children on a walk to find one example of every color of the rainbow or the basic box of eight crayons. Play this as a memory game as well, by naming the different colors and having the children respond with what they found with that color.

Colors of the Season – Cut four-inch squares of construction paper in colors that the child would see on a nature walk – for spring, yellow, light green, dark green, white, pink. Punch a hole in each square and string onto a piece of yarn. As the child walks, they must find examples of those specific colors. If you are with more than one child, rotate the necklace to different children who then get to show the others with them at least one example of each color on the necklace.

Seasonal Color Wheel – Older children may prefer the challenge of mixing paint or color pencils to create the colors they see during a particular walk through nature.

Rainbow Stories – For this activity you’ll need a bag of multi-colored pony beads and enough yarn to make a necklace for each child. As the children find object in different colors, they earn one bead for each color. You can require that two children can’t suggest the same item to earn a bead (so if one child earns a yellow bead for a buttercup, another child must look for a bumblebee or a dandelion to earn their bead).

At the end of the walk, the children must recall the items that earned them each bead and then incorporate those items into a story that they will tell the others with them.

For the child interested in animals, try these Adventures in Color and Camouflage to show the child how animals rely upon the colors of nature to offer them protection. Whether kids are learning their colors or already know their colors, you can incorporate the hues in nature into art, storytelling, and science activities.

Learning about Animals

Originally published 3/15/2011 at explorealongtheway.com

Today I was teaching a tracking program to city kids. Actually, I was indoors talking about movement patterns – how the shape of an animal’s body and the length of its legs affects the way it moves, and therefore the pattern its feet makes while walking through snow or mud.

I pointed out to the kids that we were talking about mammals – specifically, four-legged furry animals. The challenge for these kids seemed to be in picturing animals in their minds. They knew terms like “mammal,” “amphibian,” and “invertebrate” but they had difficulty connecting the terms to specific animals.

Today’s suggestion is an indoor activity. Print out pictures of animals, glue them to index cards, and write the name of the animal on the card. (Be specific with the name; not just “butterfly” but “painted lady.”) The more cards the better; you can add to the deck over the years. Include a variety of local animals and animals from around the world. Include mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, fish, and other invertebrates (animals without backbones, like mollusks and crustaceans).

You may actually be able to find this as a manufactured product. You could easily end up with hundreds of cards so don’t try to make this deck all at once. If you are a teacher, you may want a few duplicate decks of pictures.

Depending on the age and knowledge of the kids, they can play endless games with these cards while learning about animals. Here are a few ideas to get kids started.

· Sort animals into groupings – mammals, birds, etc.
· Group canines, butterflies, hoofed animals, etc.
· Sort animals into those that live in your area and those that live elsewhere.
· Sort animals into habitats – ocean, forest, rainforest, prairie, etc.
· Sort animals as endangered or common.
· Sort animals into sizes (difficult when looking at pictures).
· Sort animals into those that eat plants, meat, insects, fish, anything.
· Sort animals into nocturnal (night), diurnal (day), crepuscular (dawn and dusk).
· Set the animals into food chains or webs.
Each time a child learns something new about animals they can turn to these cards and sort through for animals that meet different qualifications. This means reading up on some of the animals, not just guessing and adding this information to the cards.

The creatures of the earth become familiar – they are more than facts, they are seen in a variety of relationships to one another and the world … and the child.