Activity 2D: Creature Features Class Book
Overview
Students create a class “Creature Features” book by selecting local aquatic animals, writing descriptions using a guided framework, and drawing detailed illustrations. They share their work with peers and an external audience, encouraging discussion.
Focus Questions
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What characteristics make this animal unique?
Enduring Understandings
- Plants and animals can be sorted into groups based on different characteristics.
Engage
20 minutes
Read the book Creature Features. Stop after each box of information and ask students to make a prediction. Students will make predictions and defend their thinking about why they chose a specific creature. What is the evidence? The goal is for students to share their thinking with the whole group.
Ask the students: “What creatures do we know about from our local aquatic environment?” Tell them that they will each write and draw one page for a “Creature Features” class book. Make a list of potential creatures for the class book. Use the invertebrates that you learned about in the previous lessons and other aquatic creatures that your students have studied.
Explore
25 Minutes
Guide the students as they re-read the book. Ask: “What creature would you choose?” This writer chose a ______. Which kind of animal could we choose to write about from our own aquatic environment? Model one page with the whole group, using the following framework:
In this tide pool I found a creature. Guess what it is by checking each feature.
How many legs (arms)? _______
What’s its shape? ________
How does it feel? _______
What does it look like? __________
It must be a ______.
Now that you know I’m letting it go!
You may want to adapt this framework for the local environment. Some creatures may not “match” this frame. Encourage students to add additional questions if their creature does not fit these questions.
Here are examples for marine and freshwater invertebrates:
In this tide pool I found a creature.
Guess what it is by checking each feature.
How many legs?
5 pairs of front legs for walking
5 pairs of swimming legs
How does it feel?
It has a stiff exoskeleton
What’s its shape?
Flattened from side to side with a tail fan
Something special about it!
It can walk or swim!
It must be a . . . shrimp!
Now that you know I’m letting it go!
In this pond I found a creature.
Guess what it is by checking each feature.
How many legs?
6 legs—two long legs paddle like oars
What’s its color?
Brown or green
How many body parts?
Three
What does it eat?
Tadpoles, small fish, and aquatic insects
Something special I’d like to share!
It swims upside-down and carries a bubble of air.
It must be . . . a water boatman
Now that you know I’m letting it go!
Show students the class list, and have each student select a creature they want to use. Ask them to write a “creature features” description about it.
Explain
20 minutes
After students have filled in their frame and drawn a picture with details, they will share their page with another student. Once everyone is done, gather the class together and allow each student to share their page. Or, the teacher may choose to put the book together and then share the book as a class.
Elaborate
30 Minutes
Create another audience for your students. You might invite another class in for a reading of the class book, or go into another classroom to share your work. Invite the audience to make predictions and/or share additional questions with the writers.
Evaluate
Check each student’s page to be sure it has all the necessary framework information.
Teacher Needs
Teacher Prep
- Collect and organize materials.
- Prepare science notebooks.
- Create templates for class charts on chart paper in advance.
- Create a template for class “Creature Features” book pages.
- Read Teacher Background for more information.
Substitutions: In Activity A, shells of marine or freshwater animals can be collected, borrowed, or purchased. Those collected from nearby beaches are best. If shells are not available, substitute buttons, pattern blocks, pressed or fresh plants, bones or animal parts (teeth, beaks, tusks, etc.) or rocks in the sorting activities.
It will be helpful to have a list of local aquatic creatures, or a book that assists children in starting to know what is in their local environment. Posters, charts, and field guides are also useful as resources.
Materials List
- Science notebooks
- A large quantity of shells (or substitutes)
- Shell Observation page
- Shell Property Chart
- Chart paper
- Yarn loops (about 1 yard long)
- Books: Seashells by the Seashore and Creature Features
- Alaska Native art forms of local animals
- Pictures and sketches of animals
- What Do You Know? game board
- What Do You Know game cards
- Dice (2 per board)
- Markers for players
For extensions:
- Graph or grid paper, 1 inch and ½ inch
- Unifix cubes or wood block cubes for measuring length
- Dried lima beans and kidney beans
- Animal Dice
- Shell Sort Continuum
- Meet the Invertebrate chart
- Math Story Problems
Student Needs
Prior Knowledge
Students should be able to take turns and listen to one another. They should have experience using describing words. Prior sorting opportunities would be helpful. They should know or learn how to write “clues” without giving too much information.
Vocabulary
characteristics, color, comparison, crustacean, describe, details, echinoderm, estimate , features, invertebrate, length, measurement, mollusk, size, shape, sort, texture, venn diagram, weight
Words for specific animal parts: antennae, claws, jaws, legs, pincers etc.
Standards
Science GLEs Addressed
K-12 Standards A2, C2, G4
Ocean Literacy Principles
- The ocean supports a great diversity of life and ecosystems.