Subject: Animals around us

Author: Zyta Sendecka

Target group

4th grade student of elementary school.

Core curriculum

Lesson objective

Students recognize and name common animals occurring in their vicinity.

The criteria for success

• you will recognise the animals in your immediate vicinity;

• you will describe characteristic features of their appearance;

• you will explain the need to protect animals.

Key competences

• communication in the mother tongue;

• communication in foreign languages;

• mathematical competence and basis competences in science and technology; 

• digital competence;

• learning to learn;

• social and civic competences.

Methods/forms of work

Working with text, observation.

Individual activity and activity in groups.

Teaching aids

• abstract;

• tablets/computers;

• interactive whiteboard or traditional blackboard;

• magnifying glasses;

• binoculars;

• pads with clip;

• pencils.

Lesson plan overview

Introduction

1. The teacher specifies the subject, lesson objective in a language the student understands, and the criteria for success.

Realization

1. The teacher presents common bird species (“Gallery 1”). The students read out their names.

2. The teacher divides the students into groups of five or six. The students take a close look at the photographs of the birds in “Gallery 1” and discuss the characteristic features of their appearance (the teacher selects the species whose attributes are analysed by the students: they should be birds that occur in the immediate vicinity, e.g. a sparrow, a rook, a magpie, a starling, a blackbird).

3. The students read the abstract and explain what other animals besides birds they may encounter in their environment. They discuss the species shown in the interactive illustration “Animals around us”.

4. The teacher shows a photo of the ladybug and asks the students to look for information about its role in nature. A volunteer student or a student selected by the teacher gives his/her answer and explains why ladybird is considered to be a useful insect for humans.

5. The teacher explains the need to protect animals.

6. The teacher recalls the safety rules to be followed by the student during lessons taking place outside the school building and invites them to play an animal tracking game.

7. The students attend field classes near the school. Each of them works alone: observes animals occurring in the area and records his/her observations in the notebook.

8. In pairs, the students compare the results of their observations.

9. The teacher asks volunteer students to give the names of animals they identified.

10. Students do interactive exercise in the form of an individual activity.

Summary

1. Round of summary sentences. Selected students finish the sentence initiated by the teacher:

“After today's lesson I can...”.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Animals around us

Whether you live in the countryside or in the city, you're bound to see various animals. Birds are the easiest to see. Cities are home to rookies, magpie, pigeons, sparrows, scythes and tits. In the countryside you can see larks, chaffinches and swallows, as well as storks that come to our country in spring to find a partner and breed the young, and in winter they fly to Africa. In gardens and allotments we can often see starlings that eat fruit from trees. Colorful jays, bullfinches and woodpeckers, who knock on the trees and look for food under the bark, live near forests. Ducks, swans and herons can be found around ponds, rivers and lakes.

Apart from birds, there are also mammals living in our neighbourhood. In the branches of trees in parks and forests you can see squirrels. A curled hedgehog can sleep in forest bed or even under a pile of leaves in the garden. Small mounds of soil, called molehills, indicate that there are moles underground. In a field adjacent to the forest, a herd of deer may graze.

Outside the city, on sunny days, you can sometimes see reptiles basking on roadside stones: lizards or vipers. In the evening, at the pond, you will hear the sounds of the amphibians – frogs living there. Toads, which are similar to them, can be found in forests and meadows. In the garden or allotment you can see invertebrates – small animals such as earthworms, snails and insects. Some insects, such as aphids and potato beetles, cause damage to fields and orchards. Other, such as ladybirds, are useful from a human point of view, as they eat animals that destroy crops. Some insects, such as water striders, live on the water surface.

• The animals that we can observe in our environment are, among others, birds, mammals, frogs, lizards and small invertebrates.

• Some animals are domesticated and bred by humans.