Winter: Hibernate, Migrate, or Stay Active?

We spent last week learning about how animals get ready for the winter! With the new time change and it getting dark much earlier, I have been getting ready for winter a little myself! I love coming home from school and putting on my warm, fuzzy pajamas and enjoying soup that is waiting on me in the crockpot. To make it even better, the Hallmark channel has already been showing Christmas movies all weekend. No better way to get ready for winter for me!

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Now back to the animals... we started talking about how animals that stay active in the winter prepare for winter by growing thicker fur and storing up food. Our math activity was supposed to have my little "squirrels" search the room for nuts such as acorns, walnuts, and pecans and then sort, count, and graph them. (I had a little "nut" issue so we didn't get to do this activity yet).

Then we talked about how some animals hibernate and sleep the winter away (that would be me!) When we talked about how some animals migrate, we watched a short BrainPop Jr. video that showed how the geese fly to the south in a V formation so they can find food. I taught the kids Dr. Jean's song called Directions to learn about North, South, East, & West and pulled out a map & globe to show where we are (Southeast TN) and where the North & South would be. Good to bring in the discussion of where the North & South Poles are since Christmas is coming soon. I also have magnets in my science center which brought up a good teachable moment to talk about the North & South Poles of a magnet.

I hung up a sign in the North side of the classroom where my little "geese" shivered in the cold and had trouble finding fish to eat because the lakes were frozen.

 

 It took a little team work to get my geese into a V formation (masking tape on the floor made this a bit easier to organize) and then we talked about how the leader had the hardest job of flying against the wind and then practiced "flying" across the room in our V formation.

 

 

 Once we got to the South, the kids easily found fish to eat (Goldfish crackers) and loved using their "beaks" to eat them.

 

 

I found some of these fun ideas from http://www.littlegiraffes.com/animalsinwinter.html. She has a great unit for Animals Getting Ready for Winter, just wish we had more time to do more of the activities!