Reptile Week – featuring Wild Kratts!

My kids are HUGE fans of Wild Kratts. I’m pretty sure they have seen every episode, most more than once. When I heard there would be four new episodes all about reptiles this week it seemed perfect for a reptile unit study. I had to work Monday and a bit on Tuesday, a public speaking assignment to prepare and present on Thursday, and a gluten free lasagna to cook and deliver for a volunteer lunch on Friday. It was a bit of a busy week but we managed to get a good deal of fun and learning done.

Monday – Work day for me.  No school / free reading.

Tuesday – Partial work day.

• *Introduction of topic – Reptile KWL
• Wild Kratts Episode “Rattlesnake Crystal”
• Rattlesnake Wrestlers reading comprehension passage
• Draw a rattlesnake using a shape pattern on the skin
• Library to pick up books

Wednesday

• **”What is a reptile?” – non fiction reading & comprehension passage – updated KWL sheets
• Snake trail addition and subtraction math game – Mark alternating spaces with + and – signs, shuffle a stack of playing cards with face cards removed. Each child receives a die, dry erase board and marker, and game marker. Student rolls the die and moves the appropriate number of spaces. They draw 2 cards from the pile and write the problem & solution on their board using the operation they landed on. Continue until board is full. Fast finishers can go back and reverse the operation for extra practice.
  
• Wild Kratts episode  “Gila Monster Under My House”
• Spike the Mixed Up Monster by Susan Hood (fiction book – Spanish vocab)
• Spike activities (coloring & sing along)

Thursday
Reptile ABC order worksheet
Reptile Classification worksheet
Compound words worksheet  (like rattlesnake)
Expanded form of numbers – Video  –  worksheet
Wild Kratts episodes “Tortuga Tune-up” and “Road Runner”
Updated KWLs

Friday
**”Alligator” and “Crocodile”  – non fiction reading & comprehension passages
**Alligator and Crocodile Venn diagram (compare contrast)
Wild Kratts episode “Mom of a Croc”
Reptile exhibit at Knoxville Zoo
Zoo journals – sketches of snakes at zoo & writing prompt “If I worked at the zoo…”

*KWL – Graphic organizer for many subjects “Know, Want to know, Learned”. Useful for establishing prior knowledge, eliciting questions to be answered during the week, and summarizing information learned during the unit. Example

** Worksheets taken from The Complete Book of Animals, Grades 1 – 3