Fall Break is Here and Bats are REAL!

And now, Fall Break! I’m enjoying a whole 5 days off from school, students, administrators, and teachers! I was sure ready for this break and enjoying every single second :). Do you have a fall break?
My students and I kicked off Fall Break with Deanna Jump’s Non-Fiction Unit on Bats. As usual and always so much fun with her stuff! I have to say my favorite part of this unit is when students discover bats aren’t vampires, they are real, and they don’t suck your blood! It’s a perfect way to introduce the word “misconceptions” they just “click and get it.” After our unit is complete, every single one of my students can explain why bats are indeed real, why they are not vampires, and can make a bat using shapes around us. Have a great long weekend y’all and here are some batty over bats pictures from our lesson!

On day one we make our KWL chart and add stick notes to the “what I learned section” every day. As we learn and discover that bats are real, we recognize and clear up any misconceptions and remove them from “what I know” to our misconceptions section. P.S. I let the students make those connections on their own, when we review, what  we know about bats, and what we have learned.

On day two we label our bat diagram and  talk about a bat’s body parts.  We also discover that bat’s are really brown not black, they have hair and are mammals.

Day 3 we make our bats during math. We compose bat body shapes from squares and rectangles.  And discuss how we can make shapes from other shapes. We also gather all of our batty facts on a bat concept map and write a short paragraph together. I lead the discussion by guiding students to use bat facts in complete sentences, then I write them down.