Earth Day Lesson with Amara and the Bats

After reading Amara and the Bats by Emma Reynolds, my first and second grade students made animal awareness posters. This is a great Earth Day lesson for elementary school. I get commissions for purchases made through the affiliate links in this post.

Science Standards Addressed

NGSS K-2-ETS1-1. Ask questions, make observations, and gather information about a situation people want to change to define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool.

My School: Communicate the impact of humans on the loss of habitats and investigate solutions to solve the problem.

Big Idea

Our actions make a difference. We can affect our environment. We can harm it, and we can help it.

Lesson Details

Ask students: What is Earth Day? Discuss. On Earth Day, we celebrate our Earth. We talk about specific things we can do to make a difference.

Introduce Amara and the Bats.

In this story, Amara and her friends are an example of what we can do to make a difference to Earth. Amara and her friends make signs to encourage people to help the bats. After we read the story, you are going to make a poster about an animal you love to tell people how we can protect it.

Read: Amara and the Bats by Emma Reynolds

Discuss the story.

What happened in the story?

What did Amara and her classmates do?

Was the habitat restored? How do you know?

Make Animal Awareness Posters

Materials:

Animal magazines or photos of animals
Books about animals or internet access for research
Construction paper for poster background
Computer paper for adding text to poster
Markers/crayons
Scissors
Glue

Directions:

Choose an animal. Make a poster to tell people how we can protect the animal. I showed my students my example below.

Your poster should include:

A picture of the animal (Use animal magazines to find photos.)
The animal’s name
What the animal needs or what we can do to protect it (examples: clean water, shallow ponds, logs or rocks, tall grass, no pesticide, turn off lights at night, etc.)
Slogan or action words (example: “Protect its habitat”)

Share and display posters.