Animal adaptation activities and lessons are so much fun, and there are so many ways to make this topic meaningful to students. This post shares a few of my favorite animal adaptation activities you can use to teach plant and animal adaptations, as well as a link to my Plant and Animal Adaptations unit.
Birds’ Beaks Experiment
Last week we did one of my favorite animal adaptation activities. We’ve been studying how birds’ beaks are physical adaptions of birds and expanded on the concept. Collect several types of tools to serve as birds’ beaks (tongs, tweezers, slotted spoons, eye droppers, staple removers, etc.) Then, collect a variety of bird foods (snails/macaroni, grubs/m&ms, nectar/red water, worms/ gummy worms, small seeds, large seeds, flesh/staples in cardboard, fish/paper clips, beetles/raisins, duckweed/Styrofoam). You can mix the food in with oatmeal or potting soil to make it a little more realistic for students.
During the activity students have two attempts to collect as much food as possible with the two beaks of their choice. I like to give students 30 seconds for each attempt and have students record their results on their data collection sheet. This is probably one of my top five favorite lessons for the entire year, because my students learn so much about adaptations.
Bird Beaks and Feet
Animal Adaptations Activities – Camouflage
I was so impressed with their creativity, and both groups really grasped the concept of camouflage. We also had a Camouflage Day where students wore camouflage to school. This is a small group of students who participated.
Animal Adaptation Lessons & Vocabulary
I display the animal adaptation posters below for essential vocabulary practice. We also play a few of the vocabulary games I blogged about in this blog post.
Hi Ashleigh
Would you have the answers for the Bird Beak worksheet please?
I don’t have an answer key for that one. I’m sorry for the inconvenience!
Where did you get the posters?
I made them:)
Hi i liked ur activity alot especially the birds beaks adaptations but i would like more information about the wG u did the experiment. Thnx