Animal Tracks

Four Winds for February was on animal tracks. We had a very fun time with this one! I made shirts for Jessica and I that had "muddy" animal tracks all over them. It made for a great introduction, the kids loved guessing what animal made each track. For a trick question, I put a bicycle track on my shirt, because people are animals and can make tracks too!

That's a bear and a dog on Jessica, and a grey squirrel running down from my shoulder.

We got to do a lot of fun activities, including a slide show of animal tracks in snow (since we still didn't have any.) We also showed them a poster detailing how following tracks can tell you a story of what happened, even though you weren't around to see it yourself.

The kids had the most fun following animal movement patterns. Some animals gallop, some bound, others waddle, and still others walk. We showed the kids how to do each and let them practice.

Here the student is following a walking pattern.

The other very popular activity was a people-tracking activity. We all took a crayon rubbing of the bottom of our shoes, then we had the kids guess which "track" matched which person's shoe. They had an unfair advantage with the adult shoes: size!

The teacher posted more pictures on her classroom blog.