Lesson Plan: Hibernation (Gr 1)

Subject: Science
Grade: 1
Lesson Objective: To learn about why and how animals hibernate
Common Core Standard: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.1- Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
Materials:
Starter:
Say:
- Why do you think animals hibernate? (Allow the students to answer.)
Main:
Say:
- Animals hibernate so that they can survive the winter. Animals hibernate when the weather gets very cold.
- The animals that hibernate would not be able to find food during the winter. So, instead of not being able to find food and being hungry, they hibernate.
- Mammals such as bears, chipmunks, bats and groundhogs hibernate. Other animals such as frogs, snakes, bees, lizards, snails and fish all hibernate.
- It would be very hard for all of these animals to find the food that they eat. They eat plants, berries and nuts. These do not grow in the winter.
- How do you think animals hibernate? (Allow the students to answer.)
- Animals hibernate by slowing their body down. Place your hand on your chest and feel how it goes up and down when you breathe. You breathe around 20 times in a minute. If you were to hibernate, you would be able to slow your breathing down so that you only breathed one or two times in a minute.
- By slowing their bodies down, animals do not need to eat and they can sleep for a long time.
- Some animals hibernate all winter and some animals only hibernate for a few months.
- There are other animals that are able to wake up from hibernation to eat some food that they have stored and then they go back to sleep.
- I am going to read to you a little more about hibernation. You will then answer questions about what I am going to read.
- Does anyone have any questions?
Feedback:
Say:
- Who would like to share your answers? (Allow the students to share)
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Written by Kimberly Greacen, Education World® Contributing Writer
Kimberly is an educator with extensive experience in curriculum writing and developing instructional materials to align with Common Core State Standards and Bloom's Taxonomy.
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