“Marvelous Moose” is designed to incorporate habitats and the food chain into a first grade classroom. It can easily be adapted for other primary grades (K-2) and focuses on learning about the habitat, diet, and life cycle of the moose. Though it can be used as a science unit, it also utilizes literature and art. It will take approximately a week to complete and meets Michigan educational standards.

Students will learn about the forest habitat of moose through hands-on exploration, discussion, problem solving, and literature. The students will use the content to apply knowledge of words and sounds as well as illustrations to create a “Marvelous Moose” book. Depending on each student's individual level, the teacher may have students fill out the entire sentence, complete partial sentences, or copy sentences.

The lesson will begin with the teacher presenting a partially stripped aspen branch, moose scat, and a moose print. The students will explore the items in a detective role. They will view clues that indicate the presence of an animal and make predictions about what animals might create the signs. The teacher will then list the students' data and the class will compare and contrast the predictions. The teacher will give input on correlations and help the students to apply clues to determine specific animal characteristics.

After analyzing the data, the teacher will present that the lesson will be about moose. Mapping skills will be used to locate habitats using the “Michigan Moose” DNR pamphlet and a Michigan map. Attention can be made to Isle Royale, an island in Lake Superior, where the food chain is surprisingly simple. The vegetation consisted largely of aspen, balsam fir, and plants, which are the choice diet of a moose. Moose are hunted on the island only by only one predator, wolves, since hunting is not allowed and no other predator exists.

Following that activity, a nonfiction moose book, such as Our Wild World Series: Moose by Anthony D. Fredericks, will be read and discussed. This can easily be done over several days because the literature has so much content. Students will discuss the habitat information and photographs. Then, each student will create a “Marvelous” habitat book to assess knowledge. With the teacher's help, students will determine ways moose function within a habitat. The habitat activity is based on critical comprehension skills of reading: who, what, when, where, why. Questioning students throughout the readings will increase their grasp of the material and help students to understand nonfiction text.

During the activity, students will work on sounding out words, completing sentences, and utilizing information for illustration. The teacher will help the students to read the sentences and determine appropriate answers, if necessary. Discussion and research can be integrated into the book to enhance the content and tailor it to a particular classroom's interest in forest ecology. The unit can be expanded to include plants and wolves.

A selection of drawing materials should be available for book illustrations. Also, a bit of brown faux fur or fabric to glue on to the moose on the cover page will add texture to the individual cover pages. Aspen and fir leaves pressed in wax paper can serve as decorations. The books can be placed in a classroom library or displayed at conferences.

3 The student understood the material presented about moose habitat. The project showed some careful effort, but was lacking in some areas. The student used knowledge of words and sounds to create the project, in most cases.

2 The student mostly understood the material presented about moose habitat but made some errors. The project showed some careful effort, but was lacking in many areas. The student did use knowledge of words and sounds to create the project, but not in most cases.

Since I am currently not teaching this school year, I secured an early November guest appearance in Sue Rozema's kindergarten class at West Michigan Academy of Environmental Science. My unit was designed primarily for first grade, but I tweaked a few things in order to fit it into the allotted time slot. It was also modified for the younger age group. My pre-test consisted of a show of hands and oral questions, rather than written text. Writing for these youngsters is difficult and can be very time consuming.

At the start of the lesson, I began with a pretest theme of “being a scientist.” I questioned the students about their general knowledge of science, who a scientist is, what types of things they study, and how they study it. Students responded with a show of hands and volunteered answers about plants and animals, indicating that they have an idea about what science is. They didn't know of any scientists but did know about some people who know a lot about animals and plants (zookeeper, farmer). I noticed that they were uncertain about ways to study science, but this was the basis for my lesson.

Next, I began with the start of my lesson. I talked a little bit about a scientist being an investigator or a solver of problems. I explained that I had taken a trip over the summer to a place up north called Isle Royale and had found some clues that a certain type of animal had been there. I needed the students to be scientists and to use detective clues to help me find out what animal that might be. In a box, I had stored aspen leaves, a picture of a tree with the bark rubbed off, moose scat, and a picture of a moose track.

One by one, we worked through the clues and made predictions about what animal could have been associated with those sign. We talked about how animals leave traces in the woods. Aspen trees are the food, which they guessed by the branch. The fir tree picture indicated that the animal had to be tall with some way to scratch bark. The moose scat could tell us about the animal's diet and maybe what kind of animal it is. This was by far the favorite of most of the children. The moose track (which was made out of construction paper) could give a clue about the size of the animal.

From these clues, the students guessed that the animal could have been a deer (among other more creative guesses). We brainstormed how the clues had to fit into our predictions. I revealed how close the students had been in their final prediction! Then, I showed some of the moose pictures that I had taken on Isle Royale. Some of the students claimed that they had seen a moose before, many had not. I told the class a little bit about what a moose is like and about the areas where they live. In addition, I had a book with some great pictures of moose, which I showed the students (Fredericks, Anthony. 2000. Our Wild Word Series: Moose. NorthWord Press, Minnetonka, Minnesota). The context of the book was beyond the comprehension level of the students but the photography is wonderful. It shows moose interacting in their surroundings.

Finally in the last part of the lesson, the students were able to use their investigating skills just like a real scientist would do and write about the animal that they had “discovered” in the “Marvelous Moose” book (included in my original lesson plan). “Marvelous Moose” was to be decorated with faux fur and an aspen leaf. Due to time constraints, I decided just to have the students paste the faux fur on the cover of their books. I made accommodations to the lesson by having students trace specific words with in the sentences, rather than writing their own (as I would have done for first graders). For example: Moose eat plants in the forest. This was a great addition to the book because students had an activity to work on while I was able to pass out supplies for decorating the book. Pictures could also be colored in order to reinforce fine motor skills, one of the great hurdles of kindergarten. Also, students knew about the material so they were encouraged to “read” their book to a friend to teach others about marvelous moose.

Students were able to interact with these items later in the lesson, which most really liked. The exploration lured them into the lesson. I had them go up to the materials a table at a time (2 or 3 students) while working on their book. This gave them the opportunity to interact with the items but still allowed the class to continue with the lesson. Rather than concentrate on gathering materials from the students during the presentation of the material, I waited to have the students handle the items at a more appropriate time. In my own classroom, I would probably taken the time to pass the materials around while I was speaking about them because it gives the students a more personal experience with the lesson.

While working on their books, I came around to ask the students questions to assess their learning about the material. The students were questioned about the types of signs animals might make in their habitat. “Scat” happened to be the most popular of the answers given, but the students seemed to have a real understanding of the basics. This was my primary goal for the lesson, since it was so brief of a time frame to teach it in.

Here is a tip for the making of the “Marvelous Moose” book. Aspen leaves dry very, very quickly at in November (yet are still available up to a few days ago) so they need to be pressed right away if being used in the project. Keeping them in a vase does not work. The branches dry out almost immediately. Fresh branches will work the best, if at all possible. I'm so glad that I found this out before the day of my lesson. By accident, I stuck a branch in water to keep it fresh and found out the leaves had become extremely brittle.

In addition, when I teach this lesson again, I would like to add a little twist to some classroom management. The students will be “looking” for moose while they are working. When I put my hands to my head and make a moose rack on my head, the students will stop what they are doing and do the same. This is a cute way to get the students' attention. It also works on reinforcing the topic by immersing them in the material. It could also be used to have the students learn a tip about wildlife observation. Look, listen, and remain still! As a guest speaker, I was sorry that I didn't have this idea before the lesson because it would have been great fun with this age group.

The book is an extremely intensive project and I ran out of time with the assignment. However, the covers of the books had to dry so the lesson was cut short without it being disruptive to the students. The classroom teacher was planning on keeping the books on a table in the room to dry the fur on the cover. She was also going to allow students to work on completing them when they were finished with other assignments at a later date.

I believe that if my lesson was completed like I had initially anticipated it would be more adequate and allow for a more thorough completion of the book and material, but it went over quite well with the kindergartners. Since they seemed to respond well, I am very excited about using it in my own classroom. However, I will not procrastinate and wait until the end of autumn when aspen leaves are more difficult to find. It would be beneficial to the students to go outside and see if they can spot aspen trees, which I might add to my next implementation of “Marvelous Moose”.