POND LIFE Unit Study Ideas

By joakman Animals

POND LIFE unit study resources

I recommend the above book. It’s about $10 Amazon, but you can often get used copies for less. (https://amzn.to/2Na1x4A) Each week we read a few of the pages (going in order) and then did some corresponding activities during our once-a-week class time. We also did a short field trip to a local pond.

Although this is a picture book, the reviewers recommend it for up to 6th grade (USA). The text is full of information and even adults will learn a lot. For older kids, you could supplement with “Eyewitness Pond and River” and/or “Pond Water Zoo” (a little pricey but excellent–hard to find used).

These activities sometimes correspond to an exact page in “One Small Square: Pond,” and sometimes they don’t. Some of the creatures appear on multiple pages of the book. Just use your own judgement as to what you want to use when.

MAGNIFIER:

If you would like an inexpensive but very powerful magnifier so you can view tiny water creatures and insects, I recommend this 40x magnifier.

VIDEOS:

I put up a PONDS YouTube playlist (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRaq2fWj05NPToikL_eCRssDZfSAyM__V) that you might find helpful. There are some really nice “up-close” videos of dragonflies, water striders, and other pond creatures. Also, nice videos of the grebe, an aquatic bird.

DRAWING LESSONS:

If you want to try some scientific illustration, click on the VIDEOS tab at the top of this page and scroll down till you see “Water strider,” “Mosquito Larva” and “Copepod.” The copepod is the easiest one, then the water strider, then the larva. However, they are all presented step by step, so the students don’t need any special art talent to do them. I demonstrate everything you need to do.

GAMES:

Aquatic Larvae Memory Match game (two pattern pages to print onto card stock)

Pond Scum, a chess-like game about protozoans

“Circle of Life; Pond Edition” (This is great for a final review game.)

ONLINE GAME:

Online quiz game about relationships between pond animals (from Royal Institution, UK)

CLASSIFICATION SONG:

If you’d like to emphasize classification (like the last few pages of the book do) you might want to use “The Arthropod Song.” Just click on the MUSIC tab, above, and you’ll find it on that page.