In Animal Territory Students will write descriptions of animals' behavior.
The BIG Book of Ready-to-Go Writing Lessons © Marci Miller & Martin Lee, Scholastic Teaching Resources
Put a variety of classroom animals on display. If you don’t have a class menagerie, you might temporarily borrow some from other classrooms, or have volunteers bring in “portable pets” from home. Possibilities include fish, mice, gerbils, hamsters, frogs, turtles, hermit crabs, meal worms, lizards, ants (in see-through “farms”), or parakeets. Tell students that scientists observe animals in their natural habitats so they can learn about their life cycles, movements, ways of communicating and interacting, and diet. Read students a passage from Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowatt, which includes vivid observations of arctic wolves in the wild. Duplicate and distribute the observation log on page 25. Tell students that they will use it for taking notes during their observations. Assign this activity for students to do at home. They can observe pets, birds that visit their backyard feeder, or neighborhood animals (domestic or wild). Emphasize that students should exercise extreme caution with animals or pets they don’t know. They should infer how these unknown animals or pets might smell or feel. If live animals are unavailable for observation, show a nature video without the sound. That way, students can focus on what they observe, not on the narration.
To help focus students’ observations, suggest that they notice how the animals eat, drink, play, sleep, sound, move, clean themselves, or interact with other animals or humans during the observation period. Set up observation posts near the classroom animals, where students can sit and observe, take notes, and record details. You might provide hand lenses to help students get a closer look at some of the animals’ characteristics or activities. Action!—You can make descriptions more exciting with action verbs that are vivid and precise. The hamster scrambled onto the wheel paints a livelier image than The hamster got on the wheel.
Have students who observed the same animals share their observations in groups. Plan an observation field trip to a zoo, a bird sanctuary, an aquarium, a kennel, an animal shelter, or another place where students can observe live animals.
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