Squirrels Lesson Plans

Squirrels are a wild animal urban kids may know as well as rural ones. Get ready for Squirrel Appreciation Day on January 21st with some literacy lesson plans.

Read some books:

• The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri
• Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution
• Nuts to You! by Lois Ehlert
• Gray Squirrel at Pacific Avenue – a Smithsonian’s Backyard Book

Online resources with background info:

• National Geographic has photos, maps, and background info.
• The Squirrel Place has a cartoon picture kids can roam around and click on for mouse practice.
• BBC Nature has lots of photos and information
• Scientific American reports on “Project Squirrel” in a very accessible article.
• Squirrel field guide is great for backyard or schoolyard observation.
• Learn to say squirrel in hundreds of languages. This is a fairly frivolous exercise, but as a linguistics student, I learned that “squirrel” is an odd word in many languages. As far as I know, there is no official explanation for this fact, so you might as well enjoy it and get a little global awareness out of it.
• Practice S and Q with a worksheet.
• Jan Brett’s Rodent Worksheet includes squirrels.

Let students explore these books and websitesand collect information about squirrels. Then have each student write a sentence (or, for older students, a paragraph or essay) about his or her favorite squirrely discovery. Older students can write about how their new knowledge meshes with their prior experience of squirrels.

Step it up with classic squirrel literature.

Henry David Thoreau described the squirrels near his home in New England:

Usually the red squirrel (Sciurus Hudsonius) waked me in the dawn, coursing over the roof and up and down the sides of the house, as if sent out of the woods for this purpose. In the course of the winter I threw out half a bushel of ears of sweet corn, which had not got ripe, on to the snow-crust by my door, and was amused by watching the motions of the various animals which were baited by it. In the twilight and the night the rabbits came regularly and made a hearty meal. All day long the red squirrels came and went, and afforded me much entertainment by their manoeuvres. One would approach at first warily through the shrub oaks, running over the snow-crust by fits and starts like a leaf blown by the wind, now a few paces this way, with wonderful speed and waste of energy, making inconceivable haste with his “trotters,” as if it were for a wager, and now as many paces that way, but never getting on more than half a rod at a time; and then suddenly pausing with a ludicrous expression and a gratuitous somerset, as if all the eyes in the universe were fixed on him, — for all the motions of a squirrel, even in the most solitary recesses of the forest, imply spectators as much as those of a dancing girl, — wasting more time in delay and circumspection than would have sufficed to walk the whole distance, — I never saw one walk, — and then suddenly, before you could say Jack Robinson, he would be in the top of a young pitch pine, winding up his clock and chiding all imaginary spectators, soliloquizing and talking to all the universe at the same time, — for no reason that I could ever detect, or he himself was aware of, I suspect. At length he would reach the corn, and selecting a suitable ear, frisk about in the same uncertain trigonometrical way to the topmost stick of my wood-pile, before my window, where he looked me in the face, and there sit for hours, supplying himself with a new ear from time to time, nibbling at first voraciously and throwing the half-naked cobs about; till at length he grew more dainty still and played with his food, tasting only the inside of the kernel, and the ear, which was held balanced over the stick by one paw, slipped from his careless grasp and fell to the ground, when he would look over at it with a ludicrous expression of uncertainty, as if suspecting that it had life, with a mind not made up whether to get it again, or a new one, or be off; now thinking of corn, then listening to hear what was in the wind. So the little impudent fellow would waste many an ear in a forenoon; till at last, seizing some longer and plumper one, considerably bigger than himself, and skilfully balancing it, he would set out with it to the woods, like a tiger with a buffalo, by the same zig-zag course and frequent pauses, scratching along with it as if it were too heavy for him and falling all the while, making its fall a diagonal between a perpendicular and horizontal, being determined to put it through at any rate; — a singularly frivolous and whimsical fellow; — and so he would get off with it to where he lived, perhaps carry it to the top of a pine tree forty or fifty rods distant, and I would afterwards find the cobs strewn about the woods in various directions.

This makes a good passage for practice with deciphering difficult language, since it describes something familiar to many students. Divide students into groups and give each group a sentence to figure out and rewrite in their own words. There are only half a dozen sentences, and the first few are fairly short.

Finish with a writing assignment. Squirrels are fairly common school mascots (that’s the Hendrix College Flying Squirrels below). Now that they’ve learned about squirrels, how do students feel about squirrels as a team mascot? How do squirrels compare with other mascot animals like tigers and lions?

Athlete Heroes Lesson Plans

Our students admire athletes, from their teammates in school sports to professional sports figures. Athlete heroes are a varied group, so that every student can find someone he or she can admire. Use our lesson plans to work on research skills and to learn about health.

Create an ad.

Instead of an ad for soft drinks or shoes, let your athlete heroes support a character trait they embody. We put Wilma Rudolph on a cereal box to advertise persistence. Rudolph grew up in poverty, suffering from severe illnesses including polio, which left her without the use of her left leg. She wore a leg brace till age 9, learned to walk normally again by age 12, and won her first Olympic medal in track at age 16. Learn more about this heroic athlete:

• Wilma Rudolph biography
• Online quiz on Rudolph’s life
• The official Olympics page for Rudolph includes video and background information about the events in which she competed.

Have students choose an athlete they admire and research that athlete’s life and work. They should then choose a character trait which their athlete could represent. Use any art techniques to make a cereal box ad for this character trait.

Write an essay.

Get to know the classic 5 paragraph essay form with an essay about an athlete hero. Hve students research their hero and write three sentences explaining this person’s admirable traits. For example, here’s our list for climber Jordan Romero:

• At 13, Romero became the youngest person ever to climb Mt. Everest, showing dedication to a difficult goal.
• Romero inspired his family to join him in his goal of climbing the world’s highest mountains.
• Romero gives credit to his family and his team, not just his own efforts.

Students should expand each of their sentences into a paragraph. Have students write each sentence at the top of a notecard and list events that show evidence for the sentence. For example, Romero’s interview at Athletic Capital has many quotes in which Romero gives credit to his family and his team. Once students have a good list of evidence for their claims, they can write each one up into a paragraph.

Have students put their three paragraphs together to form the body of the essay, and add an introduction and a conclusion.

Develop goals.

Sports heroes inspire students with their dedication, persistence, and hard work. They should also be health role models. Help students learn how to create SMART goals by choosing a health goal inspired by their athletic hero.

Olympic snowboarder Hannah Teter has plenty of good health habits, but one she’s famous for is eating a healthy breakfast every day. Students who start their day with a Coke and a candy bar can learn from Hannah. Use this example for a SMART goal.

SMART stands for

• Specific: A goal can’t be something vague like, “I want to eat better.” “I’ll eat a balanced breakfast every day” is a specific goal.
• Measurable: Without a quantifiable goal, you can’t tell whether you succeeded or not. A healthy breakfast, according to WebMD, should contain 5 grams of protein and 5 grams of fber. That cuts out the Coke and candy bar, but still leaves plenty of options from fruit and yogurt to eggs and veggies in a whole wheat tortilla.
• Achievable: A good goal is something the student can actually accomplish. Not all students have the capacity to win Olympic medals, but all students can make healthy breakfast choices.
• Realistic: A SMART goal is not only within a student’s power, but can also be achieved with the resources available. Examine the breakfast choices available in your school cafeteria or in local groceries to identify realistic healthy breakfast options.
• Timely: A goal is a dream with a timeline. Add a timeframe to the goal.

A student who chooses to follow in Hannah’s footsteps when it comes to breakfast might end up with, “I’m going to improve my health by having a balanced breakfast with 5 grams each of protein and fiber, such as the oatmeal and fruit in the cafeteria, each day beginning January 7th.”

Gather students’ goals and post them on the bulletin board.

Christmas in Russia Lesson Plans

Russia had quite a few years during which Christmas was forbidden, but the Russian Christmas has still had a profound influence on our celebration of Christmas in America, and it has some great teaching points. Study math, geography, literature, and art with our Christmas in Russia lesson plans.

Books for this study:

• Christmas in Russia
• The Tale of Baboushka
• Babushka
• Baboushka and the Three Kings
• The Miracle of St. Nicholas
• The Miraculous Child: a Folktale from Old Russia

• Mary Engelbreit’s Nutcracker has none of the darkness of the original.
• The Nutcracker by Susan Jeffers is a pretty, traditional retelling.
• The Story of the Nutcracker Ballet by Diane Goode, a small and simple telling of the story.
• Alison Jay’s version takes place in a snow globe.
• The Pacific Northwest Ballet Presents the Nutcracker is about the ballet in particular, with photos from the production using Maurice Sendak’s wonderful sets.
• Nutcracker Ballet Coloring Book
• The Berenstain Bears and the Nutcracker

Christmas in Ghana Lesson Plans

Christmas in Ghana is a religious holiday, and also a joyful harvest celebration, since it happens when the cocoa harvest comes in. People go to visit their friends and the week before Christmas is filled with revelry. On Christmas Eve, kids have a nativity play while drummers and singers provide music for dancing. The celebrations often begin in churches, but there are processions through the streets, and dancing in the streets all night. This festive custom may go on from December 20th until New Year’s.

Ghana is the second largest producer of cocoa in the world, and the December cocoa harvest provides important income for the people of Ghana, so this is a good time to study chocolate. Our Chocolate Lesson Plans include geography, history, and economics.

The Night Before Christmas, illustrated by Rachel Isadora, features Santa in Kente cloth, a traditional type of fabric from Ghana. Kente cloth is woven in long strips, and then the strips are sewn together to create fabric. Look at pictures of Kente cloth for inspiration, using the book or the video below, and then have students create their own geometric patterns on sentence strips.

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Kente cloth weaving is an art form, but new clothing is also an important part of Christmas celebrations in Ghana. Everyone receives new clothes as a gift at Christmas. Many U.S. families also have clothing traditions, ranging from new outfits for Christmas card pictures to new pajamas for Christmas Eve. Have students share any new clothing traditions they have for Christmas, and graph them.

The Christmas feast in Ghana usually includes a stew with chicken or goat meat and rice, plus fufu, a dish made with yams, cassava, plantains, or other starchy foods. Our Plant Lesson Plans include a tops and bottoms worksheet for sorting plants into those that provide food in the roots and those that provide food above the ground. Many students may be unfamiliar with cassava, plantains, and even with yams, so bringing some in to experience can be an interesting element of the lesson. Ask the lunch ladies to bake them for you, or cut chunks and microwave them. As the video below shows, fufu is not much like an American sweet potato casserole.

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GeographyGeek has a nice set of photos of Ghana to download. Show these to students, find Ghana on the map, and notice that Ghana is near the Equator. If you’re studying Christmas Around the World, compare holiday celebrations in Northern climes like Sweden,  Southern Hemisphere nations like South Africa , and equatorial nations like Ghana. How does the climate affect the celebrations?

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

The Hoboken Chicken Emergency Activities

The Hoboken Chicken Emergency by Daniel and Jill Pinkwater is a fun Thanksgiving book that your students might have seen as a TV special. It makes a terrific read aloud for elementary through middle school, with grades 3-4 as the epicenter, if you will, of enjoyment.

Arthur Bobowicz is sent out to get his family’s Thanksgiving turkey, but ends up with a live, 266 pound chicken bred by a mad scientist called Professor Mazzocchi. It’s the sort of thing that might happen to anyone, but it leads to complications. Arthur keeps the chicken as a pet, names her Henrietta, and trains her, as you can see in the video clip above. When Henrietta proves to be an inconvenient pet and has to be returned to Professor Mazzocchi, she ends up loose on the streets, scaring people in scenes reminiscent of Godzilla or King Kong. Arthur accepts the situation until the town hires a chicken hunter who sets a trap for Henrietta. When the trap fails, Professor Mazzocchi reenters the story and kicks off a “Love Henrietta” campaign to tame the chicken and endear her to the town. The campaign is successful, and by Christmas Henrietta is back with Arthur as his pet.

Read the story. There are 14 chapters, but some are very short, so this could be a daily after-lunch reading for two weeks. As you enjoy the story, try out some of these activities and discussion questions:

• Arthur lives in an urban neighborhood with lots of immigrants and some interesting shops. Compare Arthur’s shopping experience to your students’ experiences of grocery shopping. Do they visit special markets like the Indian spice shop Arthur visits? If you’re studying immigration as part of your Thanksgiving lessons, this is a nice connection.
• Hoboken is a real town. Visit Hoboken’s website to get a sense of the place.
• The family ends up eating meatloaf for Thanksgiving dinner, since Arthur wasn’t able to acquire a turkey. As it happens, the family doesn’t really like turkey, but they always have it for Thanksgiving because it’s traditional. Discuss students’ Thanksgiving traditions, and check out our Food Traditions lesson plans for related activities.
• In chapter 4, Professor Mazzocchi explains how he breeds rectangular goldfish. Use the process to practice writing step by step directions or making flowcharts.
• Professor Mazzocchi also explains that “Fish do not like to think about things they don’t understand.” Is this true of people? We’ve found that some people like ti and others say it makes their heads feel as though they’re about to explode. This is a nice question for a reflective essay.
• In chapter 6, Arthur nearly catches Henrietta, but he is in a place where he is forbidden to go, and his father finds him. Arthur doesn’t ask his father to help him get Henrietta, for fear of getting into trouble and because he’s already sure that his father won’t help. Discuss other choices Aurthur might have made.
• Arthur has to go on a family visit during the Thanksgiving break, and when he comes back, the situation has gone from being a tough break for Henrietta to being an emergency for the town of Hoboken. Discuss with students what constitutes an emergency, and what plans and systems are in place for emergencies in your classroom, school, and town.
• Henrietta is one 266-pound chicken standing six feet tall, but soon news reports are announcing that witnesses have seen lots of 1,o0o pound chickens standing 15 feet tall. Two things are going on here. First, rumors grow as they spread. Second, people in general are terrible at estimating sizes. Experiment with this by choosing a pet or stuffed animal and measuring its height and weight accurately. Take a photo and print out copies for each student. Have students interview five people each and get their estimates of the size of the creature. Graph your results.
• This book was written in 1977. The rumor about the chicken spreads by radio in chapter 7. How would it spread today? Have students create a script for the medium they choose: perhaps a succession of Tweets or Facebook updates or TV news flashes.
• The town hires a Chicken Hunter whose web address is badfowl.com. Have students use information from the book to create a homepage for www.badfowl.com, the website of Anthony DePalma, Chicken Hunter. Students can do this on paper or in your class’s graphics program, but it would also be an excellent opportunity to learn some new tech skills by building a webpage.  Read our series on A Better Classroom Website in a Week for tips.
• Arthur tries to find Henrietta himself over the Thanksgiving break without getting help. The police and the chicken hunter try to track her down and capture her, without success. Then the whole town gets involved in the “Love Henrietta” campaign, with positive results. Have students identify the steps of the campaign, and discuss why it worked. Have students brainstorm other possible solutions to the problem.

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