Hoo! Hoo! Who Is Awake At Night? Lesson Plan

What We Are Learning

nocturnal animals

owl, wolf, bat, frog, cricket, mouse, nocturnal

group discussion, critical thinking, vocabulary, science knowledge

In Night Animals by Gianna Marino, a group of nocturnal animals hear a worrisome sound in the night and run from what they assume are menacing night creatures. Then they realize they are the night animals! There’s a cheeky surprise at the end that both teachers and children will enjoy.

My Nighttime Forest

Materials: black and brown construction paper, green paint, glue sticks, child-safe scissors, googly eyes, small leaves (optional)

Children share what they learned from the issue with this easy craft!
Give each child a sheet of black and brown paper. Have a bowl of green paint nearby.
Have children practice cutting strips of brown paper. These will be the tree trunks. Next, guide children as they glue each tree trunk onto their black paper.
Once all the tree trunks are on the black paper, have children dip a finger into the green paint and put “leaves” on the trees. If they’d like, they can glue down real leaves!
Last, have children add googly eyes. Guide children in placing the eyes in pairs, close together, like they would be on a face. The eyes can be placed low on the page, like the animals on the forest floor, or near the top of the page among the leaves.
Ask students to share which nocturnal animals are awake in their forest. If they’d like, they can make the animals’ sounds too! fine-motor skills/science knowledge

Materials: squeaky toy (optional)

This simple game helps children hone their listening skills.
Have children sit in a circle. Say they will play a game together involving an owl and a mouse. Remind them that both animals are nocturnal, but owls hunt mice for food. Owls use their super hearing to hunt. In fact, an owl can hear a mouse from 900 feet away. That’s about the length of 20 cars!
Choose one child to be the owl. Have them stand in the middle of the circle and close their eyes while you quietly choose a child to be the “mouse.” If you’d like, give the mouse a squeaky toy to hold behind their back. The rest of the children in the circle should hold their hands behind their backs too. Remind them to not to say which friend is the mouse.
Signal to the mouse to squeak, either with their voice or the toy. Then ask the owl to open its eyes to try to figure out who the mouse is. When the owl finds the mouse, give other children the chance to play owls and mice. cooperation/listening skills