University of Maine Cooperative Extension   4-H Earth Connections "Creating Sustainable Communities for the 21st Century"
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AGE LEVEL = 7-9 (4-10) DURATION = 15-20 min. LEARNING STATION = Anywhere RELATED ACTIVITY = ←→ What Animal Am I? WHEN =

UNDERSTANDING: Animals have unique ways of moving and make unique sounds.

MATERIALS:

• Animal card (picture, word or drawing) for each child

PREPARATION: Prepare animal cards, if necessary.

LESSON:

Warm-up: Assign each child an animal, or have each child select an animal from picture or name cards, depending on the age.

Activity: Ask the children to think about how their animals move so they can act them out for the others to guess. Start by acting out an animal yourself. (If the children have difficulty guessing, let them make animal sounds too.)

OPTIONS AND FURTHER EXPLORATIONS:

1. Develop a comprehensive list of ways animals move (walking, running, leaping, hopping, gliding, floating, swimming, moving quickly, moving slowly, hitchhiking, etc.). Discuss relationships between how animals move and where they live, or how their bodies are shaped. Develop a chart or a graph to highlight these patterns.

2. Ask the children to act out other aspects of nature, such as the growth of a plant, or the wind. Develop group skits about how plants, animals and weather interact.

3. Have teams of four or five imitate the body movement and behavior of animals for the others to guess.