May 19, 2020
by Sandra Hoffman
We started out with a classroom survey asking about students’ attitude towards bats that showed most students were afraid of bats or disliked them.
In our classroom we had a lot of fiction and nonfiction about bats for our first graders to read. Stellaluna was a favorite and we had literature circles about it.
After reading and discussing several books we came up with many facts about bats. We found many favorable things about bats and how they are beneficial to the world. We compared bats and birds with a Venn diagram. We learned the two different types of bats and their characteristics.
We learned about echolocation through demonstration and games. We also found out some bats are endangered, such as the small brown bat in Maine.
Students then retook the survey and results showed their negative attitude towards bats had changed to an appreciation of and favorable opinion about bats.
They even wanted to change others’ attitudes towards bats. They worked in groups to make posters that showed interesting facts about bats they had discovered through reading. The students also showed all the ways bats help the world. These impressive posters were hung in the halls of our school to inform others of the value of bats.
Students wanted to do even more to help endangered bats. So with the help of a parent we constructed a couple of bat houses that were hung in the school yard to help increase the bat population in our area.
Since this unit of study was in October we made and hung models of bats to decorate our room to enjoy through Halloween. With our new knowledge these creatures were no longer scary but celebrated!
This project was a fun way to learn and students were inspired to help change the world through taking up the cause of an endangered species.
Sandra Hoffman taught first grade in South Berwick and Indian Township, Maine and was a child development specialist for Washington County Children’s Program in Machias, Maine. She is now retired and teaching her first grade grandson during Coronavirus school shutdown in Kittery, Maine.
Photos from: Sandra Hoffman and Twitter
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