Goal
To lay the foundation for understanding each person’s responsibility toward the earth’s life systems and the creatures who are part of them.
Content
What better way to introduce children to humane education and responsible behavior toward animals than to teach them about animals in the natural world? Children will learn that some animals are nocturnal and forage and mate during the night, while diurnal animals are active during the day. Children will also learn that, like themselves, all animals need to eat, sleep, and find shelter. In this unit:
- Children will begin to learn what constitutes the natural world and what makes the natural world important.
- Children will begin to identify and learn about different animals and how they help support the earth’s life systems.
- Children will begin to understand that they too are part of these life systems and that what they do affects the other creatures.
- Children will begin to develop empathy for animals by seeing how their own needs and happiness are similar to those of animals.
Click here to view California Standards Alignment.
Next: Lessons & Videos
Mow Wow Glossary
Click here to download a worksheet for students to give the meaning of the Glossary words and then write an original sentence for each word.
- environment – all the living and non-living factors that surround an organism, including such things as other organisms, food sources, the weather, and the landscape. The term environment can apply to the area immediately surrounding an organism or encompass an area of greater scale from a salt marsh to a mountain range to the total global environment.
- habitat – the local environment in which an organism lives.
- shelter – something that affords protection, that allows an animal to carry out its activities in safety.
- nocturnal – active at night.
- diurnal – active during the day.
- pollution – anything that contaminates the environment, such as chemicals dumped in a river or car exhaust. Some things that are beneficial in some situations may act as pollutants in another; carbon dioxide is a good example.
Suggested Online Resources
Suggested Books
- Amphibians (Animal Babies), Rod Theodorou
- Frogs and Other Amphibians (What Kind of Animal Is It?), Bobbie Kalman
- Little Rabbits (Born To Be Wild), Colette Barbe-Julien
- An Owl, That’s Who!, Autumn Leigh
Note: All these books are also available as Spanish-language editions.
Next: Unit 2 –Who Lives in the Backyard