Saving Wombats! Lesson Plan

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Academic Standards

 

Reading Objective:

Children will discover how an animal rescuer learned to help baby wombats survive.

 

Reading Level:

Lexile: 490L; GRL: L

 

Next Generation Science Standards:

Process 3: Planning and Carrying Out Investigations

 

Vocabulary:

animal shelter, Covid-19, survive, attack, pouches, marsupials

Use these questions to check students’ understanding and stimulate discussion:

 

1. Why didn’t Emily take the baby wombats to her animal shelter? (She could not travel to the shelter because of Covid-19.)

2. What did Emily feed the baby wombats? (dirt, grass, and wombat milk)

3. How did Emily help the baby wombats feel safe? (She sewed them a pouch.)

4. Would you like to keep a baby wombat in your home? Why? (Answers will vary.)

Go online to print or project the Reading Checkpoint.

 

  • Wombats do a lot of digging in the dirt. They dig tunnels and underground burrows.
  • When in danger, wombats dive into a tunnel. They block the entrance with their tough rear ends. They have no tails, so predators can’t grab on!

Materials: baby pictures; chart paper, pencils, copies of the skill sheet

Overview: Children just read about what baby wombats need to survive. Now they will explore what human babies need.

Directions:

  1. A few days before the lesson, ask children to find baby pictures of themselves. They can bring them into class or have them ready to share remotely. (Don’t forget yourself!) Alternately, print out pictures of babies that students can use.
  2. Have students hold up their baby pictures. Remind them that the baby wombats needed Emily’s care. Human babies also need care to survive and grow.
  3. Ask kids to look at their baby pictures and talk about what kind of care the babies in the pictures needed.
  4. Record kids’ answers on chart paper.
  5. Pass out the skill sheet. Kids can fill it out using ideas from the chart. Encourage them to look at their baby pictures to spur more ideas.
  6. Clip baby pictures to the finished skill sheets and display!