The following activities are intended to help prepare your students for a visit to Elkus Ranch. They reflect the developmental needs of young children to explore their surroundings in response to their natural curiosity and they provide older students with opportunities to develop and practice basic science process skills such as making valuable observations and forming questions to guide their learning.
Activity #1 - Making Good Observations
This article from Science and Children, titled "Unlocking the Power of Observation" outlines 2 activities to help children focus on observation and communication skills. It requires a small collection of objects such as shells, leaves, or rocks and can be completed over 2 days.
Making Good Observations
Activity #2 - Learning to Ask Questions
This article, also from Science and Children, titled "Young Questioners" describes several ideas for helping children learn to ask questions that will guide their learning. Beginning with good read aloud/think aloud strategies that encourage children to predict outcomes, the author also includes an activity that encourages children to use reasoning while they ask questions to discover the identity of a hidden object.
Learning to Ask Questions
Activity #3 - KWL
Before coming to Elkus Ranch, it may be helpful to have children realize what they already know about ranches, growing food, and raising animals and to generate questions that will focus their learning while at the ranch. When you return to school, complete the final section (L=what we learned) to see what your students learned and what remaining questions they have. Please encourage them to write or email us - we would be happy to answer questions and love to hear their comments about their time here.
KWL (Know, Want, Learn) Classroom Activity
Activity #4 - Things Keep Changing
This activity helps children notice how everyday things change with time, including themselves. Reading from The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein demonstrates how both the tree and the boy change as the years go by.
Things Keep Changing Classroom Activity (PDF)
Activity #5 - Our Environment, Inside and Out
Environmental Educators recommend, when introducing children to nature, to begin with their most immediate environment so that children feel safe and comfortable - watch a bean sprout before tending a garden, or walk barefoot in the grass before wading in a stream. In this activity children learn to describe their own environment and how it provides what they need. They then explore a nearby outdoor environment like the playground or nearby park to find wildlife and how these plants and animals get what they need to survive.
Our Environment Inside and Out Classroom Activity (PDF)
Activity #6 - Beauty in Nature
Developing an awareness and enjoyment of the beauty and wonder of the natural world is a primary goal for any Environmental Education program. This activity will expose children to art inspired by nature and have them create a gallery of their own nature inspired artwork.
Beauty in Nature Classroom Activity
Vocabulary and Definitions