Play, Learn, & Discover... Together: Inquiry Project... Hibernators

We have deeply investigated what many animals do to survive the long cold winter.
The children worked in collaborative buddy pairs and set out to be investigators.
They were instructed to use the pictures to look for clues that might have something to do with our 'wonders.' They were also told to look closely and try to notice any new or unusual things and report back to the group.

We spent a good half hour just paging through books and talking about the things we saw. The children were showing pictures to each other and having great side conversations.
When we came back together I simply asked them what they found to show that animals were changing or doing something to get ready for winter.
The sharing was wonderful! The children were captivated by the real photographs in the nonfiction books and had a lot to share.
Here are some of their statements:

I saw bats snuggling close
birds were flying together in a V
I saw sooooo many butterflies flying in the sky
a bear was laying down
I saw a chipmunk sleeping in the ground
I saw squirrels getting nuts

Next, the children were invited to choose any animal to draw and when we were finished we sorted them into the 3 categories we learned about: hibernators, migrators, and animals who stay and adapt to the cold. We even used real artist tools... oil pastels.

The following day we began creating habitats for the hibernating animals. We found out the animals who hibernate eat LOTS of food during the fall and when they go to sleep their body temperature gets colder and their breathing slows way down. As they sleep, their bodies feed off of the extra fat all winter.
Here's what we came up with...

A bat cave. We learned that a big group of bats is called a colony and they huddle together to keep warm.

A bear den. We learned that a bear can sleep for several months without eating. They eat so much in the summer and fall and get really fat so they don't have to eat during the winter.

We decided we needed to add a few things from nature to make it look like our den was really in the side of a hill. We were happy it was a mild afternoon, so we didn't need jackets:)

We brought our nature treasures inside and got right to work!

A log for snakes. We learned they coil up and lay on top of each other to stay warm.

A tunnel-system with burrow for ground squirrels. It's amazing what can be done with a little brown paper and a bit of scrunching and molding. Hiding the animals was the BEST part!

The last group of animals we explored were those who stay here for the winter and tough it out like us humans! (tree squirrels, rabbits, foxes,...) We found out that these animals eat LOTS of food during fall and add an extra layer of fat to their bodies. They also grow thicker fur and learn to eat a slightly different diet (bark, twigs...) because access to fresh plants is minimal during winter. We took a walk around school and noticed several tree squirrel nests or dreys. We wondered what those leaf balls were doing in the tree tops.