PreK Field Trip Lesson Descriptions

Animal Homes: Investigate animals’ homes, match animals to their habitats, and go outside to see who is making their home outside your back door.  Work collectively to create a forest and pond habitat scene out of natural materials, and then make sure each New England animal puppet finds its home in the habitat.

Bears: Learn about the lives of black bears by touching their soft thick fur, looking at a bear skull up close, and following the tracks of a bear as it walks and climbs a tree.  Find out what bears eat for lunch, and what bears do throughout the seasons.  Go home with your own bear finger puppet made out of paper.

Beavers: Can you build a dam out of sticks and mud to hold back water?  Give it a try!  Look at a beaver skull, admire their special teeth, and examine beaver sticks and chew marks.  Touch their waterproof fur and their webbed feet.  Turn the instructor into a beaver by dressing them up in a beaver costume to review what helps beavers swim, build things out of mud and sticks, and cut down trees.

Day and Night Animals: Put puzzles together to learn which animals are diurnal, nocturnal or crepuscular.  Test your eyes as a diurnal hunter – can you find the animals hiding in the pictures?  Use a flashlight to uncover the secrets of eye shine and learn what allows owls to fly almost silently in the darkness.

Frogs and Toads: How is a frog different from a toad?  Act out the lifecycle of each to discover some of the answers and learn how to leap like a frog and hop like a toad.  Using natural materials, create a habitat for a toy frog.  Can you get your frog to float on a lily pad in your little pond?

Preparing for Winter: Winter is just around the corner.  What do animals do to prepare for the cold and snow?  Learn about animals that hibernate, migrate and stay active.  Touch the soft wing of a hawk and the thick fur of a bear.  Play Red Squirrel, Grey Squirrel and see how good you are at finding your food in the winter months. Available October - December.

Seasons: Using images, follow the flow and pattern of the seasons through the years, and learn what animals do in each season.  Imagine you are water.  What does each season feel like?  Can you guess the season from listening to the clues?  Using a twig ‘tree’, flowers and colored leaves, mimic the flow of the seasons as you add the appropriate elements to your tree.

Snakes: Explore the wonderful world of snakes as you touch a snakeskin, examine a snake skeleton, and learn what our local snakes do in each season.  Become a snake as you bask in the sun, slither through the grass, go on a hunt for your lunch, and find your favorite habitat.  Meet a live snake ambassador from VINS and learn what makes snakes so special.

Turtles: Touch the shell of a turtle, feel a turtle’s backbone, and learn why a turtle can’t walk out of its shell.  Become a turtle as you crawl into your shell and go on a hunt for your lunch.  Meet a turtle ambassador of VINS, see what she likes to eat, and learn what the turtle calls home in the wild.