Spring Brings Babies! Lesson Plan

What We Are Learning

baby animals

balance, bounce, bathe, buck, bark

group discussion, critical thinking, vocabulary, phonological awareness, counting, handwriting

Is Your Mama a Llama? by Deborah Guarino is a modern classic in many homes and classrooms. It’s a beautifully illustrated story about a baby llama searching for its mama. As it travels far and wide, it learns about where other animals live and how they behave. As you read, ask children to think about similarities and differences among the different animals.

Spring Baby Charades

Materials: Spring Baby Charades skill sheet, small basket or hat

Get kids up and moving with this baby animal charades game!
In advance, cut out the cards from the Spring Babies Charades skill sheet.
Read each card to your students and explain the movements to them. Have them take turns demonstrating the movements. Then fold the cards in half and place them into a hat or a small basket.
Have students come up one at a time and choose a card from the hat. They will act out the baby animal’s movements, making sure not to say what’s on the card. The rest of the class can try to guess which animal each classmate is pretending to be.
To extend the learning, ask your students to share which animal is their favorite and why. gross-motor skills/observation

Materials: white construction paper or cardstock, orange construction paper, yellow tempera paint, spoons, forks, glue, markers, googly eyes

Create an adorable fluffy chick with this craft!
In advance, cut small diamond shapes from orange construction paper. Make sure you have enough for each child to receive one.
Give each child a sheet of white construction paper. Put out small bowls of yellow tempera paint and a spoon.
Have each child put a spoonful of yellow paint onto the center of their construction paper. Then guide them as they use the back of a fork to press the paint, pulling it outward from the center. This technique will simulate the feathers of the baby bird.
Next, have children fold the diamond shapes in half to make triangle beaks. Add a small dab of glue to the middle of the yellow paint and stick the beak to the glue.
Finally, add two more dabs of glue to attach the googly eyes and have children draw legs and feet with a marker. fine-motor skills