Activities
Activity One- Communication
I begin this activity by asking students to brainstorm routines that we engage in at school (entering the class, breakfast routines, visiting lockers, lining up, walking in the hall, etcetera). I would record their ideas on chart paper for future reference. I then ask the students if animals have routines. After they weigh in, I’ll let them know that animals have many routines but we call them rituals. I will then tell them that they will get to see a video of animals participating in a ritual. They will then watch a flamingos dancing video. Videos of this ritual are readily available on Youtube. I searched for “flamingo courtship dance” and several popped up. I would highly suggest that any video be viewed all the way through before sharing it with students. After the video I would ask them to do a Notice & Wonder. On chart paper I will record the things they saw as well as the questions they may have raised. My first follow up questions to the class will be “why do you think they are doing that”. I doubt they will get the correct answer which is to find a mate (or in K terms a boyfriend or girlfriend flamingo). The next question asked is “what does the dance get them”. That answer would be an egg and after it hatches a flamingo chick. I will then connect the courtship ritual to our line routine. The flamingos are very synchronized in their movements, and while they make a bit of a crowd as they wade through the shallow water, we will not be crowding down the hallways. Instead, I will take the students out to the hallway and practice walking. Our focus will be on staying together in line, stepping as best as we can in unison as I count the 1-2-3, left-right-left, cadence. If the students are getting that, I may elect to have them turn shake their heads left and right on the count of 3. Over the next week or two we will continue to practice our flamingo walk. Throughout the school year, in times when the line gets sloppy, I can remind them of the flamingo ritual and begin the 1-2-3 counts again. This is a simple activity that the students will be able to do. Doing this together in synch will bond our class together and elevate our classroom climate. Plus, our line behavior should be much improved as the students will likely be focused on the rhythm and count and not on touching stuff on the walls, or each other, or any of a million things they typically would do as we move about the school. After practicing this on the initial day, we will sum things up by the students drawing (which the CCSS defines as a part of K writing) the flamingos engaging in dance. As a bonus to connect this lesson to our classroom routines, I have found a book, How to Dance Like A Flamingo by Moira Butterfield, which as the title suggests will sequence instructions on how to do some postures that loosely connect to the courtship dance ritual. The book also includes movements meant to mimic other animals. This book will be an excellent source of movement breaks and should add a layer of connection between my students and animal teachers.
Activity Two- Cooperation
I will begin the activity by having students turn and talk. The guiding question of this sharing opportunity will be; “How do we show cooperation throughout the school day?”. After a few moments I will call the students back together as a group and have the pairs share something they discussed. Following this, I will ask them if animals cooperate in nature. I’ll accept ideas and move on to a read-a-loud of the book “Packs: Strength in Numbers” by Hannah Salyer. This book explores several animals that operate as groups to accomplish some tasks. After the reading we will briefly discuss how cooperation/teamwork helped these species succeed. I will then bring up another situation related to animals cooperating; the honeyguide bird and the honey badger. I will show the students images of these two animals and ask if they can find any connections between the two of them. They will come up with answers and may get the one I’m hoping for which is that they both have the word honey in their name. I will then share a video of the cooperation between these animals (see content objectives under “cooperation” for the answer to how they are alike). I will then ask the students how the honeyguide bird and the honey badger are different from the animals we read about in Packs: Strength in Numbers. The answer is that the book focused on single species cooperating but the video showed two different species cooperating because it benefited each of them. In this case, both animals with a taste for honey receive a belly full of honey. I will close the lesson by allowing the students to draw (I will provide labeling) any of the cooperative groups of animals that we had discussed today. When it is time for the routine, I will connect the animal cooperation to our classroom routine of cleaning up. Can we do a better job of cleaning up quickly and safely if we cooperate together on the task, just like the honeyguide bird and honey badger, or the dolphins, zebras, wildebeests or any other animal featured in the lesson. As a bonus, cooperating on tasks is also tied to civics standards in Delaware kindergarten. Yay cross-curricular connection (SEL, science, social studies).
Activity Three- Connection and Diversity Makes us Stronger
I will begin the lesson by showing the class a picture of a single ripe cornstalk. I will then ask the students what they notice or wonder about the plant. I will have a piece of chart paper prepared with two vertical lines that divide the page into thirds. I will label the first column “corn” (and draw a corn stalk next to the label. As students provide notices, I record them in this column. I will be looking for the notices that the cornstalk is tall and straight. If these traits are not shared by the students, I will share them and add them to the list. I will then share a picture of a monoculture field of corn and ask the students what they notice about this field. I will be looking for an answer like, “It’s all corn”. I will then introduce the term monoculture: the growing of a single crop in an area (though they do not need to know this term, K students generally really enjoy ‘big kid words’). I will then share a collage of pictures of animals that eat corn from the field. Some of the animals featured could be birds, deer, raccoons, and squirrels. These are animals commonly found in Delaware. I will ask the students, what they think all of these animals have to do with corn. I imagine that someone would suggest that they all eat corn. The follow up question will be, “what do you imagine would happen if bunches of those animals found the field of corn from our picture of the monoculture?”. They would likely say that the animals would eat all of the corn. We could then discuss whether this farmer could lose his entire crop because the animals found the field. During the discussion I will bring up that a problem of monocultures is that natural events like animals feeding or even weather conditions could ruin an entire crop. I will also share that presently almost all of our food crops are grown in monocultures. I will then explain that long, long ago Indigenous people had a different way of growing crops. Has anyone ever heard of the “Three Sisters”? I will tell them that the sisters are not people, and that the first sister is corn. I will then introduce the second sister by showing a picture of a bean plant. I will again ask the students what they notice or wonder about the bean plant. While they are looking, I will also label the second column of the chart paper as “beans” and draw a sketch of a bean plant next to the label. As with the corn before, I will record their notices in the column. This time, I am looking for the trait of curvy or twisty vines and possibly shorter than the corn. If they are not mentioned I will note these features of beans. The kids will then be told that beans are the second sister. I will also mention that when beans are raised in a monoculture, they have the same weaknesses as a monoculture of corn. They could be destroyed by animals that like beans or a weather event with which beans would struggle. To introduce the third and final sister I share a picture of a squash plant. I again ask the students to do a notice a wonder about this new plant. After some thinking time, I have students report back on their notices or wonders and record them in the final column of our chart. This time I would like to focus on the size of the leaves on the squash plant. Should it not be noticed I will guide them there. As before I would point out that as in any monoculture, a field of squash plants would have weaknesses.
When the three sisters are grown together they become stronger than when they are grown in monocultures. The corn is straight and tall and the corn stalk provides a place for the bean vines to twist and curve around and around allowing the bean plant to reach higher and higher to the sun. Bean plants could not “rise above” other plants without the literal support of the corn stalk. The bean plant also has a superpower. It releases nitrogen (kind of like fertilizer) into the ground. This nitrogen feeds the beans, but also the corn, and even the third sister the squash plant. The squash plant grows those big leaves that cover the ground around the first two sisters. These leaves make it hard for weeds and other plants to grow around the sisters. The leaves also provide a lot of shelter from the sun. This means that the ground around the sisters also holds in water better than if that ground were just out in the open sunrays. So, the diversity of these plants helps all three of the them succeed. The plants help each other to better gather sunlight, receive nutrients from the soil, and for that soil to retain water. The unique structures and abilities of the plants make the team much stronger when they are together. This is just like our class. If we all had exactly the same traits, background knowledge and skills, then our class would be a monoculture. For example, if we all had amazing math skills our class would be great at counting, adding, and even subtracting. We would be amazing… until we got to a word problem. If our entire class could not read the sentences, we would fail. Monocultures are alright as long as the conditions are perfect, but a polyculture, which is when a diverse population of crops (or people) are together, is so much stronger. If our class had some kids that were great at reading and also a group of kids really good at math skills. We would be amazing working together to solve challenges that require a combination of skills, like story problems. When I look across our carpet, I am thrilled to see so many different kids each with unique skills. I am thrilled to see our classroom polyculture. A challenge to the class is to now pay special attention to our skills and the skills of our classmates. Being focused on other students’ answers and ideas during class discussions is one way to figure out the skills of classmates. If you are struggling in a skill that we are practicing, like identifying numerals, you may know another student in the class that seems good at that skill. You may be able to get help from them. If you are very strong and a classmate is struggling, you can offer support. Or course the teacher is also a member of our community and you can seek help from that person too. We can be like the “Three Sisters” and support each other, because we are all stronger together.
These activities while seemingly simple, will elevate the class and our culture in several ways. First, we will be improving our social-emotional learning skills by learning from the animals and plants. We will make gains in the areas of communication, empathy, and cooperation. At the same time, we will be connecting to science standards related to patterns in nature. Finally, we will be developing an appreciation for the natural world by coming to know the plants and animals that we share the Earth with. This appreciation of nature can ultimately improve our own health. One health is showing that our health (even mental health) is very much connected to the well-being of the animals and the plants of our world. We cannot remain healthy ourselves without preserving nature. That starts with appreciating nature.
Three activities have been outlined in this unit. However, interesting rituals reside in animals of all species and some plants. The activities described above can be used as a model for using nature to elevate the classroom. Find an animal you believe will engage your students. Think on or research what unique rituals or behaviors does that animal practice. Then connect it to a classroom routine or social-emotional skill that you feel your class could benefit from. A few quick examples from the animals I detailed in the content section. Elephants, wolves, gorillas, and bonobos all engage in greeting rituals. Could these examples could be utilized during “morning meeting” as we greet each other on the carpet to start the day? Rattlesnakes, skunks, and dogs are very easy to understand if you can read their forms of communication (body language, vocalizations, and mechanical sounds). Could learning to read animals better help the student understand each other or you? Wolves and killer whales orchestrate hunts. Could we learn from their teamwork to better handle classroom tasks more cooperatively? Can we learn from a pride of lions that play is highly important to the development of skills for adulthood. Are your students are really excited by axolotls (I didn’t know what they were either until my students talked about them all last year) and can I cash in on that excitement to improve some aspect of my classroom routines? I wrote this unit because I believe the answer to these questions is yes.
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