You can still complete these together as a class, OR you can have students complete the activities independent FOR… wait for….ĮXTRA INTERVENTION time for math and reading!! This is also a great time to do a life cycle cut and paste, my favorite for this unit is the Polar Bear Life cycle! For students who need a more challenge, they must write complete sentences. For struggling students, they simply draw and label. I like to have students compare a mother animal and a baby animal using an interactive journal (seen on the left). These are PERFECT for when students are ready to become a little more independent. Interactive Animal Mothers and Babies Journals You can easily differentiate this activity by having students draw, label or even write complete sentences. I love the freedom that it gives me as a teacher to lead the discussion where I need it to go, but I also love that it gives students an opportunity to get really creative. I love using prompts like the one you see on the left on the “Mothers and Babies” worksheet. This is a great opportunity to informally start comparing how young animals look like their parents (coloration, number of limbs and body structure).

The best way to start this unit on Animal Mothers and Babies is to do a simple matching activity where you match a picture of the young animal with the mother animal. These activities are completed at the beginning of the unit when students are just starting to build their knowledge base, so these activities might seem easy, but remember, they are BUILDING their knowledge on the subject. We are then recording that new information on a simple recording sheet.

This is where I introduce new vocabulary and I am “guiding” students through books or videos to find new information.

Okay, “Guided Research” sounds like a super formal term… but what it really means is that these are the activities that we do together as a class and there is typically a right or wrong answer. Learning the Facts about Animal Mothers and Babies

Baby animal parent match