Facts can be dry for younger students. First-graders are imaginative and engage well with picture books and story time. "Stellaluna," for example, is a fictional book about a baby bat separated from its mother and thinks it's an owl. Before reading, assess prior knowledge by asking students what they know about bats. Using chart paper, make a list of ideas. Next create a T-Chart or Venn Diagram and tell kids to be listening for differences and similarities between birds and bats. During reading, stop and gauge understanding, asking children questions such as: "What do you notice so far? How is Stellaluna different from her mother?" After reading, review the chart together, add to it, and then discuss findings. While reading, you can have a Stellaluna doll hanging. After the reading pass the toy around.
Technology is a great tool to engage students. Students can create a classroom website with facts and drawings using art software. First, students sketch picture ideas they want to draw. Next, they choose one fact about bats to write as a caption underneath. The teacher should help students with spelling and editing. Next students illustrate their picture on the computer and type the fact. The teacher can also introduce PowerPoint to the students. Children can create simple slides with clip art and images of bats along with a few simple facts. Presentations can be done for parents or other classes.
Create story books using facts about bats. First, brainstorm ideas about problems and solutions. For instance, one bat's conflict could be that he no longer wants to be nocturnal so he tries to stay up during the day. Encourage students to decide how the problem could be fixed in the end. Books should be no longer than five pages. Use standard sized paper for each page so students have room to draw and write the caption. Each student should have a list of facts to refer to written on the board or in a hand-out. After books are completed, you can teach students to bind their books. Punch holes in the margins. Cut pieces of yarn twice as long as the margin side of the paper. Knot one end of yarn and wrap tape around the other end to create a blunt end for threading through the holes. Give students a visual diagram so they can refer to it while threading yarn in and out of the holes. Tie off the end. Provide story time so students can read their books to one another before taking them home. An extension could include inviting kindergartners or older students in the classroom and having students share their books with reading buddies.
Have students experience echolocation to understand it better. Create an open space in the classroom. One child is the "bat" and another is the food for the bat, or the "moth." The remaining students are designated "objects" in the bat's environment. The objects hold spoons and stand with their backs to each other in groups of three. The bat is blindfolded. As he moves, he attempts to see by sound while clapping loudly and attempting to get his food, or tag the moth. The moth and objects only clink spoons when the bat faces them directly. When the bat does tag a moth or bump into either the moth or the objects, that game is over. Choose a new bat and moth. Afterward, prompt a discussion by asking, "How did it feel? Was it hard, easy? Why?" Discussion should emphasize similarities and differences between the way we see and a bat's way of seeing by bouncing their own sound off many objects simultaneously to navigate.