Move Like an Animal!

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Ask your students to join you for a story at the story area.
• Explain to them that you will read a book about animal movement and that you want them to listen carefully and think about the different ways the animals are moving.
• Read Swing, Slither, or Swim: A Book About Animal Movements to your students.
• Point out some of the animals in the book, and explain how they move to the students.

Guided Practice

• Ask some students to come up to the book and then have them point to the animals and say how they move.
• Discuss with the students that some animals are able to move in more than one way, for instance, dogs can run and swim.
• Ask students to take turns discussing the text in partnerships and share ideas about the animals and their movements. Allow students to mimic some of the animal movements during their descriptions.
• Explain to the students that they will are going to sort animals based on how they move.

Independent working time

• Place the students in groups. Review the rules for collaborative group discussion by creating a poster titled "Group Work."
  1. Listen to others carefully
  2. Speak one at a time
  3. Talk about the text or topic
• Have students give a thumbs up if they can agree to follow these rules for group discussions.
• Explain to the groups that they will receive two sheets of paper with pictures of animals and that they will need to cut out the animals and sort them by the way they move.
• Hand out the animal picture sheets and have the students begin to cut out and sort. As group members sort the pictures, have them discuss their placement with their group members. Remind your students that they might sort the animals differently than their friends but they should be able to discuss their ideas.
• Choose some students to explain to the class how they sorted their animals.
• Hand out a plastic baggie to each student and tell them to put their animals in it so they can use them again another day.