Your students will go batty for this creative hands-on resource! This non-fiction unit focuses on 1st and 2nd Grade Common Core ELA Standards with lots of fun activities that are perfect for interactive notebooks, too! This unit has been newly updated and now includes the Life Cycle of a Bat and a Bat Flip Book!
Bats are amazing little creatures that are very helpful to people! Bats are mammals just like us! But the one thing that makes bats special from all other mammals is that they can fly!
Introduce your bat unit with these three fun and factual character bats: Buddy Boo, Berry Boo, and Bitty Boo. Students will love reading and learning all about them.
Students will learn all about bats with informational articles on:
✔ Diet
✔ Body parts
✔ Echolocation
✔ Hibernation
✔ Ways bats help people
This packet includes many interactive activities for students including:
✔ Three character bat stories (a micro, mega, and fruit bat)
✔ High-interest reading passages about bats
✔ “An Uninvited Guest” – a batty fictional story
✔ Vocabulary Posters
✔ Vocabulary Flip Flaps
✔ Author’s Purpose
✔ Cause/Effect
✔ Bat Organizers (2)
✔ Create a Mini-Accordion Bat Book
✔ Compare/contrast bats and you
✔ Writing Prompt
✔ Life Cycle of a bat
✔ 5 page Bats Flip Book
✔ For Elementary Grades – First grade, Second grade, Third grade
✔ Great for Core Knowledge
✔ Perfect for 1st and 2nd Graders
There are a lot of ways to use this packet in the classroom depending on your students and the time allotted for this unit.
There are 4 main activities:
Introduce the unit with the 3 fun and factual bats: Buddy Boo, Berry Boo, and Bitty Boo. Have students write three facts they learned about their favorite bat on writing paper choices that match the bats. These look great as a display on a bulletin board. Next, read the “An Uninvited Guest” story and answer the questions to pique their interest and build background knowledge. These are perfect for guided reading groups with two sets of skill-based questions. This is also a great discussion starter for real-life situations.
Introduce the 6 vocabulary words with the real-life photo posters included. You could post these posters around the classroom and have students travel around to match up and define the words in their flip flaps or use as a center activity. In addition, the vocabulary flip flaps are a great hands-on activity that works well in their interactive notebooks.
Next, have students read the informational articles and complete the Batty for Bats Organizer (2 sided). These are great for centers too. There is a Batty for Bats Accordion Book. There are two options to do this depending on age and time limits. They will color, cut, and build the book. Once completed it can be used as a stand-alone mini booklet or glued inside their notebooks. There’s also a writing prompt for students to write their own “Uninvited Guest” story. Newly added are a Bats Mini-booklet and Bats Flip Book.
Bonus: A cause and effect activity, a Venn to compare and contrast bats and you, and bats writing papers in three different styles to use any way you want. For example, for a research report, personal narrative, or to give facts they’ve learned about bats.
