Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Look at Us!: Challenge Activities (Theme 1)
Challenge your advanced learners with this set of activities based around a common theme. Learners draw, research, share, retell stories, compare and contrast, and more over the course of these activities, which focus mostly on animals...
Civil War Trust
Civil War Animal Mascots
A pet can offer comfort, friendship, and loyalty in the most stressful of situations. Here is a lesson plan that explores the important role animals played during the Civil War. Class members read informative texts, complete a...
Curated OER
We Like to Imagine - Animals
Young scholars describe a pretend animal. They read "The After School Monster." Students read other books and discuss whether or not the characters are real. Young scholars make a drawing of a pretend animal and of a real animal. They...
Curated OER
Let's Discover Communities
Second graders compare and contrast the city and the country. After reading books about animals, 2nd graders create picture cards of animals in both the country and city environment. In partners, students draw pictures of animals,...
Curated OER
Animals
Second graders explore the ways in which animals differ. They discuss the characteristics of insects and spiders. Students identify the characteristics of insects and spiders. They compare and contrast insects and spiders.
Virginia Department of Education
Weather Patterns and Seasonal Changes
Get your class outside to observe their surroundings with a lesson highlighting weather patterns and seasonal changes. First, learners take a weather walk to survey how the weather affects animals, people, plants, and trees during...
Berkshire Museum
Camouflage!: Collecting Data and Concealing Color
Help young scholars see the important role camouflage plays in the survival of animals with a fun science lesson. Starting with an outdoor activity, children take on the role of hungry birds as they search for worms represented by...
Curated OER
Animals in the Wild
Students compare/contrast paintings with similar subjects and themes. They discuss how a painting may relate to life experiences. Students draw animal families and compose a story about a painting by Gerome. They discuss zoos and...
Curated OER
Fall vs. Spring
Young scholars compare and contrast the seasons of fall and spring. In this fall and spring lesson plan, students learn the differences between fall and spring through books and pictures, identify the differences, draw their own...
Curated OER
What Do You Know About the Birds Around You?
Students compare and contrast various species of birds. After participating in a brief discussion of the characteristics of birds, they view birds in their natural habitat and in pictures with a focus on the similarities and differences...
Curated OER
Serious Farm: comprehension skills
In this comprehension skills worksheet, students read the book Serious Farm and complete comprehension activities. Students complete activities such as plot, cause and effect, summarizing, drawing conclusions, and compare and contrast.
Curated OER
Animals and Me
Students develop skills needed to use the Internet. They demonstrate scrolling, links, and the back arrow. Students read a book and explore the web for their favorite animal. They create a Venn diagram comparing their body parts to the...
Curated OER
Mangrove Ecosystem
Eager ecologists explore ecosystems through video and photographs of a Mangrove. They discuss the animals in this habitat and how they interact with each other after reading and discussing "The Sea, the Storm and the Mangrove Tangle."...
Curated OER
Biodiversity
Short and sweet, this presentation introduces tiny scientists to biodiversity. They view pictures of three different dogs and four different spiders and compare their physical characteristics. Explorers are then sent outdoors to find...
Curated OER
Ice Age Animals
Students research the ice age and the animals that were on the Earth at that time and have a debate on the explanation for the extinction of the ice age animals.
Curated OER
Comparing Monkey Story with Curious George Stories
Students compare and contrast the main character in Monkey with the main character in Curious George.
Curated OER
Amazon Rainforest Conservation, Brazil
Students explore rain forests. In this rain forest lesson, students participate in a "BioBlitz" of their schoolyard, observing and recording every living thing in a designated area. Students visit websites about rain forests...
Curated OER
Working-with-Animals Careers
First graders list and discuss careers that involve working with animals and draw pictures of careers that interest them. They compare and contrast domestic and wild animals.
Desert Discoveries
Sizing Up Dinosaurs
Here is a terrific activity in which learners compare their size to the size of actual dinosaurs. Using the magic of the overhead projector and a transparency of the outline of a dinosaur skeleton, pupils can see how big these animals...
University of Pennsylvania
Evolution by Natural Selection
A diagram, data table, and reading passage top this resource. Through it, biology beginners are introduced to the concept of natural selection. They answer some questions and then participate in a simulation using fabric as a habitat and...
Curated OER
Who Takes Care of the Maya Forest Corridor?
First graders study the animals in the Maya Forest Reserve. In this conservation lesson, 1st graders create a graph to compare the environment of animals to their own. They design a 3D model of these two environments.
Curated OER
First Grade Goes to the Zoo
First graders summarize their trip to the zoo. In this summarizing lesson plan, 1st graders will study animals that they may see at the zoo including their characteristics and habitats. Once the trip is done, they create a word document...
Curated OER
Frog Friendly Habitat
Students create a frog friendly habitat. For this animal habitat lesson, students study what animals need to survive and then create a frog habitat from a shoe box. Students write a report about frogs and present their habitats...
Reed Novel Studies
The Wind In The Willows: Novel Study
True friends stick together. In the case of The Wind In The Willows, the friends just happen to be a toad, mole, rat, and badger who team up to beat the weasels. The resource covers the first chapter of their raucous adventures. Scholars...