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.