Classroom teachers can choose from 2-3 of the following hands-on activities. These sessions are limited to no more than 25 students and last approximately 30 minutes.
What Hatches from an Egg?
This grade-level workshop focuses on my songbook, What Hatches from an Egg? It has three components beginning with a firsthand account, or story, titled, If You Care, You’ll Leave Them There. Spring and early summer mark the arrival of new, young wildlife, and “Spring Babies” are quite abundant. Although it may be hard to resist the temptation to take them out of the wild, it is a temptation best avoided. As a previous Wildlife Rehabilitator, I will guide students towards the more appropriate choice.
After a brief discussion, the students sing along with the songbook What Hatches from an Egg? Opportunities to make predictions using picture and textual clues make this title age appropriate.
The final activity begins by having students seriate (based on size) authentic ostrich, emu, chicken, and robin eggs. Comparing/contrasting continues with the ostrich and emu. This is followed-up by a hands-on activity and requires students to use their sense of touch. They are presented with images of six living things that hatch from eggs. Individual children will be called upon to reach into cloth eggs and predict which plastic animals each egg contains. The target audience would be K-2nd graders, and this session lasts approximately 45 to 60 minutes.
Snakes are S-S-S-Special!
This primary workshop focuses on my songbook, The Predator. The children begin with a sing-along followed by a dramatization that illustrates predator/prey relationships. Children with prey animals attempt to escape from a large snake puppet paralleling the lyrics in the songbook using their adaptations: mouse – ears, frog – legs, mother cottontail – distraction, bird – wings, and lizard – camouflage. The dramatization is followed by a slide show illustrating how snakes’ unique adaptations assist them in hunting prey. A culminating activity asks students to choose one of the snake’s attributes and draw themselves as Super Heroes using that quality: scales, inner ears, a tongue that smells, eyecaps, or a jaw that can unhook to swallow large objects. Snakes truly are S-S-S-Special predators!
