Regardless of how diligently you plan, there are always those days or weeks when the school calendar just doesn’t work with the plan you had. Whether it is an unplanned assembly, a snow day, or a short holiday week, these interruptions can be quite frustrating as a teacher – we know they were for us!
Want to know how we solved this long time frustration though? Come with us as we share the solution through these bat activities for elementary students.
Bat Lesson Plan
The bat activities we will share below are part of one larger bat lesson plan. In fact, they are all part of one lesson for ONE day! That’s right, the series of bat activities you’ll explore below are designed for students to engage with for one day only.
While these activities are focused on teaching students about bats, they are one of several one day themed lesson plans we designed to solve the problem of class interruptions. All of our themed lesson plans are designed with a project based learning approach.
This project based learning approach is intended to help students explore a topic through a real life scenario or problem. Moreover, they are designed to keep students engaged in the learning process by incorporating a hands on approach.
We could explain this further BUT we think it is more effective (and exciting) to see it in action! So, let’s see how you are going to engage your students in learning about bats – in one day!
It all starts with giving students their mission. The students’ mission begins with a guiding question and then students explore four focus areas to learn how to answer the guiding question and complete their mission.
Guiding Question: How can we protect bats and understand their important role in nature?
4 Part Mission:
- Learn about bats by reading and watching videos
- Teach others about bats by writing an informational flipbook
- Complete a math mosquito challenge
- Build a home for a bat
Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the guiding question and steps of the four part mission. Then, join us as we dive deeper into the learning activities students will engage with at each step of the mission.
Bat Reading Activity for Kids
Once you introduce students to the Guiding Question, the next step is to have them learn about bats because they can’t complete their mission without first knowing about bats!
Students learn about bats in several ways:
- Reading Informational Text
- Watching Videos
- Taking Notes
The first way they learn about bats is through an informational text. We provide you with three informational texts that engage students in learning about bats through reading.
The first text is All About Bats and teaches students important facts about bats, like that there are over 1,400 specimens of bats! In addition to the All About Bats facts, students read an informational chart that explains the parts of a bat.
Once students have an understanding of bats they continue to learn about bats by reading the page on How to Protect Bats. This is a key part because it is where students begin to think about how they will build a home to protect bats at the end of their mission.
Along with reading about bats, students learn more about bats through two informational videos. While these videos will further support their understanding of bats, they are not required! Therefore, if you prefer not to have students engage with media they can still complete their mission with the readings!
While students read and watch, they can use the note taking sheet that is included in this resource to keep track of what they learn. This note taking sheet is important as it teaches students the importance of taking notes while they learn. Furthermore, they will continue to use the information they note as they move to the next step in the mission.
Bat Writing Activity for Kids
Research shows that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach others about it. Therefore, the next part of this mission is for the students to share what they learned.
Since reading and writing are integral parts of literacy development, we decided to follow up the informational reading from part one with a writing activity in part two.
Students will use the information they learned from reading about bats to create an informational flipbook about bats. They will include information that explains what bats look like, how bats hunt, what bats eat, and other ways to help bats.
While reading and writing about bats is a common way to learn about a new topic, the learning doesn’t stop there! The next parts of this project based learning experience engage students in learning about bats through math and science.
Bat Math Activity for Kids
Yes, there is room for learning about bats through math! Moreover, there is a real world connection that further connects students to bats through math in a true project based learning approach. Let’s see how!
Since students are learning about bats from the perspective of how to protect them, this next part of the mission is through the lens of conservationists. Students are asked to help conservationists show people how important bats are by showing how many mosquitoes bats can eat in one night.
Therefore, students must engage their math skills to figure out the number of mosquitoes bats eat at night. Once they have this information, they can use it to show people how important bats are to protect.
Bat Science Project for Kids
Alongside reading, writing, and math, science is another important area that can be explored through the lens of bats. Moreover, it can easily be tied to the assignments already completed earlier in the mission.
Once students have gone through the first three steps of their mission to protect bats, the fourth and final step is to build a structure to protect the bats. Therefore, asking students to go beyond just science and take on a STEM project.
If you have not done a STEM project in your class before, don’t worry though, our easy to follow engineering process will walk you and your students through it!
The first step of the STEM process is to present students with the problem: Bats need safe places to live, and sometimes it’s hard for them to find shelter. The conversation team needs help building safe and cozy places for bats to rest.
Once the kids know the problem, they are given the challenge: Build a bat house that can help protect bats.
Armed with the problem and the challenge, students set out to accomplish the task of building a bat house. They don’t just jump into building a bat house though. First, they go through several steps to set them up for success.
These steps include returning to reading information on bats, as well as exploring key vocabulary words about bats. Next, they begin to plan how to build their bat house. Finally, they build the bat house.
Yes, they do actually build a bat house! However, we provide a way for them to do this using common materials already in an elementary classroom.
After completing these steps students will then reflect on how well their house solved the problem.
Bat Lesson Plans Checks for Understanding
While the bat lesson plans provided for these four core activities are the focus of this project based learning experience, there are some additional resources that we have also included. One of these resources is the mission checkpoints!
These mission checkpoints are not only fun for the students to reinforce their mission to protect bats but are also checks for understanding. Therefore, at each mission checkpoint students will encounter an activity that tests their knowledge and skills for each content area.
To make this a fun way of assessing student learning, each student will receive a Save the Bats! Patch once they successfully complete each checkpoint. In addition, at the end of the mission, they will receive a certificate of accomplishment with their name listed as a conservationist who “helped protect the bats!”
Additional Bat Activities for Learning
At this point, you can probably see how this bat themed lesson plan will cover an entire day of learning! However, we know that every classroom is different and that you may want additional learning activities for your students.
So, in addition to the four key parts of the bat themed project above, we have included a few additional learning activities.
- Life Cycle of a Bat informational text
- Bat Life Cycle Graphic Organizer
- Parts of a Bat Graphic Organizer
- How to Draw a Bat Guiding Drawing
These additional activities can be used to extend learning into an additional day or for students who finish early. In addition, they can be used to further engage students in a particular area of learning that you want to focus on in your classroom. They can also NOT be used! You choose what fits YOUR classroom needs!
How to Use Themed Day Lesson Plans
If this is your first time using a one day themed lesson plan, let us first say how excited we are for you to try it! The second thing is, just follow the lesson plans!
In addition to a detailed overview of what’s included in the bat themed lesson plan you will find detailed lesson plans for each individual learning activity. This means individual lesson plans for reading, writing, math, and STEM.
As we mentioned at the beginning of this post, these themed lessons are designed to make the life of a teacher EASIER! Therefore, we have provided as much instruction as possible to easily walk you through implementing this project based learning activity with ease.
Additionally, we use the same model for ALL of our one day themed projects. So, once you get familiar with this first lesson plan you can add in more of them as needed throughout the year.
Whether you need an engaging way to keep your students learning up until the last day before winter break or just a one day project to get through a difficult week in the middle of the year, there’s a variety to choose from. Use one or all!
