All About Animals
Learn about the interesting ways in which animals adapt and create their own homes, with a focus on animals you can find in Illinois.
The Big Idea: Animals’ features and adaptations are specifically suited to their collection of food, creation of their habitats, and survival in their environment.
Appropriate for K – 3
VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP VIDEO RENTAL: You will have 2-week access to a playlist of videos in both English and Spanish, and you can break up our instructional and educational videos however you please. Videos may be shown or streamed only to classrooms at one school or site only.
Video package includes:
- Three recorded activities
- Investigate how some insects use camouflage when creating their homes.
- Explore different types of bird beaks and discover which beaks work best in Illinois’ grassy landscapes.
- Create a device that birds can take advantage of when building their nests.
- Two recorded informational videos
- Explore Turtle Rock, Kohl Children’s Museum’s animal habitat exhibit for Southern Painted Turtles.
- Compare and contrast bird nests during this in-depth showing of different bird homes.
- Two recorded story times
- Activity instructions provided in English and Spanish to support learning at school and at home
SUPPLY KITS: Why waste time and money collecting supplies? We’ll ship 30 individual kits of supplies to one location with materials needed for three of the recorded activities.
LIVE SESSION: Includes a 20-minute live presentation for one classroom from a Museum educator with an activity exploring how animals use camouflage.
Illinois Early Learning and Development Standards
Goal 3: Demonstrate interest in and understanding of informational text.
3.A Recognize key ideas and details in nonfiction text.
Goal 11: Demonstrate curiosity about the world and begin to use the practices of science and engineering to answer questions and solve problems.
11.A Develop beginning skills in the use of science and engineering practices, such as observing, asking questions, solving problems, and drawing conclusions.
Goal 12: Explores concepts and information about the physical, earth, and life sciences.
12.A Understand that living things grow and change.
12.C Explore the physical properties of objects.
Common Core Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.10 Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1 Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.3 Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.5 Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.5 Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and communicative tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.
Next Generation Science Standards
K-L S1-1 Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals need to survive.
4-L S1-1 Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.
2-L S4-1 Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats
1-L S1-1 From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes: Use materials to design a solution to a human problem by mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs.