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EARLY CHILDHOOD NEWSLETTER

 

Volume 4, Issue 10
May 23, 2006


THIS ISSUE'S EARLY CHILDHOOD NEWSLETTER THEME:

Baby Animals


WELCOME! to Education World's Early Childhood Newsletter. Every other week, I'll share some ideas on a familiar teaching theme. Hopefully you will find a new activity idea or two -- or a new twist on one of your old favorites! Since I know you are very busy, I'll be short and sweet -- like most of activities I suggest.

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A WORD ABOUT THIS ISSUE'S THEME

Use this rhyme at any time during a unit that covers the topics of Animals, Spring, The Farm, The Rain Forest...

Baby animals
Soft and sweet.
Tiny mouths,
Eyes still asleep.

Some have feathers
Some have fur
So brand new
They hardly stir.

Baby animals
Oh so small,
Come in spring.
We love them all!



ACTIVITY IDEAS

MATCH IT!
Collect pictures of baby animals and their adult counterparts. Glue each picture onto a sheet of tag board, write the name of the animal, and laminate the card. Invite children to identify which animals are babies and to then match the babies with their parents.

ANIMAL TIC-TAC-TOE
Use masking tape to create a tic-tac-toe grid (3 boxes X 3 boxes) on the floor. Divide students into two teams, the Xs and Os. Call out the name of a mother animal for one team. The first player must identify that animal's offspring. If the player answers correctly, he or she takes a place in a box on the floor grid. The first team to fill a row of three boxes makes the noises of each animal identified. The game continues until everyone has had a turn.

WOOLY LAMBS
Give each child a baby lamb shape cut from black construction paper. Help children glue the shapes onto pieces of white drawing paper. Encourage children to use crayons to add the sky, sun, grass, and trees to their white paper. Next give children cotton balls to glue onto their lamb shapes for wooly lambs.

WHO HATCHES?
Read to children Chickens Aren't the Only Ones, by Ruth Heller. Talk with children about the many kinds of animals that hatch from eggs. Provide children with egg-shaped pieces of drawing paper. Encourage children to choose a baby animal that hatches from an egg to illustrate. Write the animal name on each picture. Bind the drawings into a classroom booklet titled "Who Hatches?"

GRAPH IT!
Create on a piece of poster board a grid consisting of seven or eight vertical rows each having six to eight boxes going across. At the bottom of each column, glue a picture of a baby animal. Provide coloring pages of each baby animal shown on the grid. Invite children to choose their favorite animal page to color. Paste each child's colored picture in one of the grid's boxes above the corresponding animal's name. Discuss the completed graph with children and pose questions they can answer by using the graph.



ON THE WEB

Check out the following Web sites for additional background and activities.

BillyBear4Kids
Download baby animal jigsaw puzzles for kids to complete online.
http://www.billybear4kids.com/jigsaw-puzzles/BabyAnimals/puzzles.html

Baby Animals
Visit some cute babies -- polar bears, pandas, tigers, and lions. Get some fun activities too!
http://keep3.sjfc.edu/students/dsd2658/e%2Dport/unitplan/

Enchanted Learning
Find out the correct male, female, and baby name for a comprehensive list of animals.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/animals/Animalbabies.shtml

Small Wonders
See some great photos of babies that have been at Sea World.
http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/small-wonders/

'Babying' Young Animals
Get some helpful information about what to do if you see a wild baby animal -- from the Kansas State Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.
http://www.mediarelations.ksu.edu/WEB/News/InView/40705babyanimals.html