Key Activities for Achieving Desired Results
Phase I: Stimulates student interest and raises essential questions.
Phase II: Focuses on content and language functions
needed to assist students in meeting performance outcomes.
1) Reads The City Mouse and the Country Mouse (available
in other languages) to introduce the concept of two different
environments and the idea of one's needs verses one's likes.
The teacher has students make comparisons on a chart about the
differences and similarities of the two homes.
2) Provides a handout with images (names of items in the
target language) and tells students to circle only three things
they would absolutely want to have in their home in blue. The
teacher asks students to circle three things they think they
absolutely need to survive in red. Students may then share
their answers in pairs with, "I would like to have ___." and "I
need ___." The class discusses their answers afterwards to
make a distinction about things they like versus things that
are essential to their life.
Needs for Survival (Powerpoint File)
3) Displays pictures of three migratory animals/creatures
that are very different from each other such as: a sea turtle, a
butterfly, and an elephant. (Migratory animals are found on
Enchanted Learning) S(he)
asks questions about size, movement, and physical features using
either/or choices and gestures to support meaning.
4) Creates a Venn diagram to list the features that are
mentioned and asks students to think about what all three of
them have in common even though the animals are all very
5) Presents a map of the continent on which each animal lives
to show when animals move, where they move to and during
which seasons or months the move takes place.
6) Reviews the names of the seven continents with students in
a touch/show activity. Students color-code a key with five
animals and then use directions north, south, east and west to
indicate the area in which the five animals live and migrate to
on different continents. Students review season changes and
brainstorm a list of reasons why animals migrate.
7) Directs students to role-play migration on a floor map or
on an overhead by providing the student actor directions,
months, and seasons. The teacher asks students questions about
the student who role-played migration such as: Where did he go?
Did he go west or east? Did he go north or further south?
Continent/Animal Color Code Activity (Powerpoint File)
8) Reads one or two stories such as Tessa and the Fishy
Mystery (UNEP/Tunza Environmental Series for Children), La
Rivière au Trésor (Éditions Scholastic), or Benjamin célèbre la
migration (Editions Scholastic) also called Franklin Celebrates
9) Uses Total Physical Response (TPR) to direct students to
act out types of pollution or reasons for migration. Students
illustrate a simple sentence about migration to share with the
French Resources for Migratory Animals (Word Document)
Phase III: Involves students in performance tasks that address the 3 modes of communication.
1) Play games such as Fly-swatter, What's Missing?, or Tic
Tac Toe to assist in remembering animal names, how they move,
what they eat, and the name of their coat. Students can play
Back to Back using new words and TPR or a dice game to create
sentences about each animal for points.
2) Play a Candyland style game in which they roll dice and
must identify the name and item in need by an animal and an
animal that needs it.
Survival Needs Dice Game (Powerpoint File)
3) Complete a graph that summarizes the characteristics of
one migratory animal to become an expert about that animal and
then teach it to others in small groups in a Jig Saw activity.
Characteristics of Animals (Word Document) and
Migratory Animal Needs Visual (Powerpoint File)
4) Compare two animals using the characteristics chart and a
Venn diagram. One student can make a statement about one of the
animals and then the partner can reply by saying their animal is
the same or different and then provide a characteristic about
his/her animal in return.
Comparison of two Animals (Word Document)
5) Role-play an animal in a "Who am I?" game. The student
will make "I" statements about what animal he/she is pretending
to be. The classmates must guess the student's animal.
6) Play Twenty Questions in small groups about the animals to
practice descriptive words or identifying features used to
define each animal.
Un tableau descriptif des animaux (Word Document)
7) Complete a biome chart with a partner as guided by the
teacher to work independently and then report the answers
on an overhead in front of the class. Students will then name
one migratory animal for each habitat.
Characteristics of Biomes Chart (Powerpoint File)
8) Cut, paste, and color food/water, shelter, and animal
mates into a mini-book with about five to seven migratory
animals and then read their books to a friend or family member
9) Students circle items that do not belong in a particular
habitat. On an overhead the teacher displays a list of the
items that do and do not belong in the habitat. The teacher
models asking whether the item belongs or is good for the
environment and then asks a few student volunteers to take over and
check off the chart for "good" and "bad".
Pollution (Powerpoint File)
10) Role-play deforestation. The teacher assigns some
students roles as trees/plants and other students as animals
that depend on them. Gradually the teacher takes the
trees/plant students away and asks the students who are animals
to seek new ones until many of them are clinging to only a few
remaining living plants. Ask students simple questions about
whether animals will survive by staying there or by moving.
11) Color in a map on member countries of a global
organization. The teacher first displays a web site or passes
around a brochure from a global organization such as the UNEP
(United Nations Environmental Program) and asks
questions about who its members are and what the organization
does to help animals.
1) Read information on their select animal and complete a graphic
organizer about the animal's habitats and locations, its physical
characteristics, its needs for survival, and why it migrates. (It
is suggested that younger students be given choices to circle to
simplify the task writing.)
2) Illustrate the animal in its habitat on a poster or with a
shadow box for the final presentation.
Information Graph on Animal (Powerpoint File)
3) Role-play scientists asking and answering questions about
migratory animals' habitats, physical characteristics, and
needs. Older students must create and agree on an environmental
organization name and its locations in the world based on the
type of migratory animal they select. They will research
different aspects of their animal and the share findings with
their group members.
4) Present posters or shadow boxes of their animal along with
information they learned about it from their graphic organizer.
Students provide simple statements about what type of habitat the
animal lives in, what continents or countries it is found, and where
Animal Presentation Rubric