It's Alive, It's Alive!

A Spring Activity

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Spring has sprung so it is the perfect time to learn about living things! During the spring, I have my students focus on learning how to observe and describe similarities and differences in the appearance and behavior of animals. Students also learn how to identify major structures of common animals such as arms, wings, and legs.

In keeping with these life science kindergarten standards, students get to observe the life cycle of a chicken. We begin the process of hatching chickens in an incubator and then learn how to take care of the chickens once they hatch.  Students write their daily observations in their "Chicken Observation Journal." This serves as a terrific independent writing activity for all the students.

A terrific book to use with this activity is From Egg to Chicken by Gerald Legg.

Books for Teaching about Farms and Farm Animals
Use these books to spur discussions and interest in the topics of farms and farm animals, and give the students creative ideas when asked to write about them.

Teaching a Lesson: Grade 3
Extend your magazine online with daily news stories, blogs, and the Scholastic Kids Press Corps. Includes reproducibles.

Joan Novelli’s Writing Workshop
Suggests using a lesson in autobiographical writing to get students acquainted at the beginning of the school year. The lesson plan includes reading autobiographies and modeling the writing process.

LESSON PLAN	Let's Learn About Firefighters! Presents a lesson plan focusing on fire safety and prevention through reading, writing, and brain storming sessions.
UNIT PLAN	We Need Farms Displays a lesson unit about farms and the resources they provide. Students also learn to write descriptively, while focusing on their audience.