Expand: CREATE A DIORAMA, TELLING STORIES
KEY CONCEPTS
• identify animals on the farm and describe their characteristics
• recognize and understand the basic needs of animals for air, water,
food, shelter, and space.
SUMMARY
Students create a diorama using a cardboard shoebox or pre-made barn.
Create a silo from a cardboard tube or oatmeal container. For animals,
use the 3D animals included in the kit, cutout animals, or animals molded
out of clay. These animals are placed in the model farm (pre-made or simply
constructed). Create buckets and feed troughs from construction paper
and tape. Add hay, straw and feed from the farm samples. The farm center
illustrates the farm as habitat for a variety of species.
MATERIALS NEEDED
cardboard shoebox, cardboard tube or oatmeal container, the 3D animals
included in the kit or natural colored clay, construction paper, tape,
samples of feed and any other props you find. Books about farm animals.
Scrap art materials.
DIRECTIONS
CREATE A DIORAMA
1. Students work in species teams to create the items needed for their basic needs such as fences, water buckets, feed buckets, stalls etc.
2. The teacher travels among the groups asking leading questions such as those suggested in the Engage (field trip) section. These questions help students determine if they have created all the pieces that can to help take care of their species basic needs.
3. The teacher introduces the idea of a basic need of rare breed farm
animals. Rare breeds have a unique need: they need a job, or they will
not survive. Farm animals are not like wild animals, which simply need
habitat. People need to want farm animals, to have a use for them, or
the animals will not be kept.
TELLING STORIES
1. Students work in small groups at this center making up stories
with animal models.
2. (Assessment) This activity serves as the evaluation component. The
diorama incorporates all the new information learned. Students then integrate
this information. In the creation of stories they are applying what they
have learned to a new situation. Barnyard Tales (in the Evaluation section)
is a similar activity with more recording and accountability.
