Try these activities in your classroom!

• Take a Trip Around the World
• Language Arts/Writing
• Animal Explorations
  Science
• Math
  
• PE/Movement

TAKE A TRIP AROUND THE WORLD

Take trip around the world through books or thematic units – for a day, a week or a whole school year.

Create Passports Take photos of your students and create passports. Use a template found online or create your own with blue cardstock and gold seals or patriotic stickers. Stamp each location after you’ve studied that region.

Make a 2D Suitcase Using construction paper, create a suitcase-shaped portfolio for student work. Or bind writing projects with a “suitcase” cover.

Make a 3D Suitcase Take a handled pencil box (or paint a wooden suitcase found at craft stores). Decorate it with global destination stickers, or make your own from white labels. Create luggage tags labeled with student names. Store pencils or student-created postcards from your trip around the world.

Take a Virtual Airplane Trip Fasten your seatbelts, and place your seats in the upright position. Set up chairs in rows, with an aisle, as on an airplane. (Snacks and beverage service are optional.) Watch video clips of animals around the world, or deboard the plane to do activities at each “destination.”

Host a Bon Voyage or Welcome Home Party Host a class potluck featuring international dishes, foods that come from the rainforest, etc.

LANGUAGE ARTS/WRITING

You can find templates for the following activities online or in resource books.

Create a Postcard/Write a Friendly Letter Send a “postcard” from the continent of your choice. Using proper letter form (date, salutation, body, closing, signature), tell all you’ve learned about the animals who live there.

Write a Persuasive Letter Write a letter to your parents, convincing them to let you keep an elephant (crocodile, etc.) as a pet. Organize your reasons from the least to the most important. Mention the animal’s unique physical attributes/talents to explain how it could be handy at home.

Create a “Wanted” Poster In the tradition of the Wild West, create a “Wanted” poster about an animal of your choice. Try these starters or come up with your own: cheetah/speeding, slow loris/holding up traffic, sugar glider/flying without a license, basilisk/defying laws of gravity.

Create a Class Book Have each student create and illustrate a page: “If I had ___ like a ___, I could ….” (e.g. If I had a body like a penguin, I could go sledding without any sled. If I had a head like a cassowary, I could bike without a helmet.) Answers can be humorous but must be true.

 

ANIMAL EXPLORATIONS

Questions, Questions … Try these starting points for research, class books or discussion. Or for fun after a traditional unit of study, create a game show, so students can show what they’ve learned. Click to download all Animal Explorations.

Love the Skin You’re In/Neither “Hair” Nor There In the animal kingdom, form has a function. An animal’s skin/coat can help it survive. What’s so special about each of these animals’ skin, hair or fur? (Chinchilla, rhino, yak, ocelot, tapir, alpaca, Arctic fox, sugar glider, snow leopard)

Lumps, Bumps, Scales, Horns and Thorns Funny as they may look, lumps and bumps serve a purpose. How are the poky, pointy (or just plain funny-looking) parts of each animal helpful? (Thorny devil, warthog, camel, pangolin, rhino, echidna, cassowary)

Say “Cheese! ” What’s so special about each of these animals’ teeth or tusks? (Crocodile, agouti, warthog, hyena, walrus, elephant, piranha)

Watch this amazing video clip about agouti teeth: http://videos.howstuffworks.com/

 

SCIENCE

Write a Research Report Research your favorite animal’s physical appearance, habitat/range, mode of locomotion, diet, behavior, adaptations, life cycle/reproduction, natural enemies, species survival status, and other interesting facts. Include maps, diagrams, photos or multimedia. Cite your sources in a bibliography.

Animal Adaptations Discuss the concepts of migration, hibernation, insulation and camouflage. Pick an animal and explore which adaptation(s) it uses to survive and thrive.

Biomes of the World – Habitats Study the world’s biomes – the major regions of our planet characterized by their flora, fauna and climate – and the animals that live there. (e.g. Terrestrial biomes – desert, tropical rainforest, temperate forest, grassland, taiga and tundra/Aquatic biomes – marine and freshwater)

Food Chain/Food Web Pick a biome (or smaller ecosystem within it) and explore the food web/food chain. Who eats whom? Or create a literal paper “food chain,” writing facts about each animal on each link.

 

MATH

Try these math idea starters, or create your own. Click to download all Math Activities.

Addition/Subtraction An ostrich and a hippo are at the waterhole. How many legs? How many more legs does a yak have than an emu?

Greater Than/Less Than Which has a greater number of legs? (Five penguins or three tigers? Two kangaroos or ten anacondas?)

“Multiplegation” Five emus and three dingoes crossed the outback. How many legs? Or make a skip counting/multiplication book to count animal legs.

Graphing Choose five animals. Which is your favorite? Graph and analyze your results. Or pick a continent/region from Around the World on Eighty Legs. How many mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish?

 

PE/MOVEMENT

Click to download all PE/Movement Activities.

Hop Like a Kangaroo How can kangaroos keep going and going and going? Kangaroo legs work like pogo sticks – their tendons act like springs, storing up energy from one bounce to power the next one. Bounding along takes much less energy than hopping and stopping. The kangaroo’s long tail provides balance, helping them bound more quickly.

Watch this ARKive video of kangaroos bounding.

Your legs are not spring-loaded like a kangaroo’s, but give hopping a try: is it easier to hop and stop, or to keep going?


First try hopping on two feet in an upright position. Then try holding one leg out behind you like a kangaroo’s tail. Is it easier or more difficult?


Try it with a kangaroo stuffed animal in a tote bag. Is it easier to hold it in your hand, or tightly in front of you, like a joey in a pouch?

“Monkey” Bars Gibbons are actually apes, not monkeys – like all apes, they have no tail. Why are gibbons so much more nimble than humans? Their shoulders are incredibly flexible – their long arms can rotate almost all the way around in their sockets. Unlike humans, their wrists also contain ball-and-socket joints, adding for greater range of movement.

Watch an ARKive video clip of gibbons brachiating through the trees.

Try relays on the “monkey” bars to imitate the gibbon.