Nocturnal Animals

Stages

Description

Explore the array of senses used by nocturnal animals to find their way around their habitat in the dark.

This hands-on activity is designed to teach 5-7 year olds about nocturnal animals and the senses they employ to navigate life in the dark.

The first activity involves using a number of small drawstring bags, each containing a mystery object. Students are encouraged to engage their sense of touch in order to describe and identify each mystery object without looking inside the bags. Students then discuss what they can feel in the bags using adjectives to describe the texture, weight and shape of the mystery object.

For the second activity, students listen to sound recordings of different animals and try to match the sounds to the images of animals on the worksheet. In both activities, students have their eyes shut to encourage them to rely solely on their other senses to identify the objects and sounds.