Kindergarten Science in Language Arts -Beavers

Introduction to Kindergarten Science in Language Arts -Beavers

-Common Core English Language Arts CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.1-10 and Next Generation Science Standard* K-ESS2-2

This Kindergarten Science in Language Arts project was so much fun!  I enjoy all of our lessons because I get to learn new things as well as Jack.  I wanted to cover both a Next Generation Science Standard* as well as an English Language Arts standard for Kindergarten so I came up with a lesson on beavers. The Next Generation Science Standard* we covered states that the student should learn how plants and animals change the environment to survive.  For the ELA standards, we covered ALL of the Reading for Informational Text Standards for Kindergarten.

You can find the full lesson plan, activities, and assessment for this lesson at our Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

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To begin, we picked out a bunch of books about beavers.  Some of these books were encyclopedia-like and others were more of a story form, but they were all nonfiction.  Here is a list of the books:

–The Beaver by Glen Rounds
–Beavers: Dam Builders (Animal Architects) by Lynn George 
–Look Inside a Beaver’s Lodge (Look Inside Animal Homes) by Megan C. Peterson
–The Beaver’s Lodge: Building with Leftovers (Spectacular Animal Towns) by Adam Reingold
–Beavers (Kids Can Press Wildlife Series) by Deborah Hodge
–Beavers by Gail Gibbons.

Materials List for Kindergarten Science in Language Arts

–poster board
–paper lunch bag
–tissue paper
–scissors
–construction paper
–glue
-large sticks for lodge
-a bucket of wet soil
–Beavers in Science and Laguage Arts lesson

Step 1: Download the Kindergarten Science in Language Arts -Beavers lesson and complete the worksheets (you will need the books listed above to complete the worksheets)

Here are two sample worksheets from the Beavers in Science and Language Arts lesson:

Step 2: Ask family and friends questions they have about beavers and answer them through your research

We asked some of our family and friends to come up with questions they had about beavers and through our research we answered those questions on a poster board.

These are some of the questions we collected.  Jack had one particular question that was very interesting about beaver boogers.

Step 2a (optional): Call a wildlife rehabilitator to ask questions about beavers

Here are the answers we got from calling Steven Serwtka at NJ Nature.  He is a wildlife rehabilitator in south Jersey.

Here are the other answers we found. I filmed this on my phone, which does not have good audio, so I apologize for that.

Step 3: Collect all the materials except the soil, sticks, and poster board and follow directions below for making a lunch bag beaver family

After doing our research, we used our knowledge of what a beaver looks like to make a paper lunch bag beaver family.  We started by stuffing brown paper lunch bags with tissue paper.

Then we pulled together the end of the bag and used scissors to cut out a black oval tail from construction paper and we stapled it on the end of the bag.

We looked at one of the pictures in our research books and drew legs for all of the beavers the best we could.  We also cut out larger black circles for noses and smaller black circles for eyes and glued them on the bag.  Of course we couldn’t forget the two orange teeth.

These are our finished beavers!

Step 4: Use the large sticks and mud to create a beaver lodge

Here we are creating our beaver lodge our of sticks collected and mud from our garden.

Step 4a (optional): Visit a wildlife rehabilitator where you can meet a real live beaver!

We made it!!! We went to visit NJ Nature in south Jersey and we got to meet a real life beaver!

We also got to pet a deer.

Here is Jack giving a donation to NJ Nature Wildlife Rehabilitator Steve Serwatka.

Step 5: Complete the assessment from the Kindergarten Science in Language Arts -Beavers lesson

Here is a sample assessment page from our lesson:

Source:

NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

*”Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is a registered trademark of Achieve. Neither Achieve nor the lead states and partners that developed the Next Generation Science Standards were involved in the production of this product, and do not endorse it.”