The North Carolina Museum of Natural Science created this resource as part of an online workshop series, but you are welcome to use or modify it for your classroom. It includes a video and written directions for creating nature journals and tips for incorporating them into your classroom. For information on taking any the Nature Neighborhood online workshops for CEUs or EE credit, visit: https://naturalsciences.org/learn/educators/online-workshops.

Students will use their animal sketches and notes from the last art class to generate ideas and create a 3-D paper hand puppet of the animal they chose to study. Teacher will demonstrate a variety of paper sculpture and folding techniques. Students will use these paper sculpture techniques and choose contrasting colors/shapes to create an expressive hand puppet with big, bold, and expressive elements of art. Some recycled papers will be used to teach recycling and conserving of our paper resources. Fraction folding techniques/terminology will integrate math into this art lesson. This lesson was developed by Nancy McGuire as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

Students will collaborate in groups to plan and present a puppet show using their hand puppets and illustrated animal booklets. They will share what they have learned about animals around the globe with their classmates through these puppets and illustrated booklets. Groups will be assigned by the teacher according to their animals' regions/habitats of the world. This lesson will use all the information learned and products created during this unit called "Learning About Animals Around the Globe". This lesson was developed by Nancy McGuire as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

Students will learn about animals around the globe through growing awareness, research, and sharing of their perspectives about animals and their particular habitats. In this first introductory lesson, students will listen to discussion, view images, and then research animals from various regions of the world using internet images and an assortment of animal books provided at their work tables. After the class discussion and individual study of resources, students will choose one animal as a focus and become familiar with its physical characteristics, habitat, and fun facts to share during a future lesson. Students will then use drawing paper and pencil to render quick sketches of their animal showing its physical characteristics. These sketches will be used during the next art lesson when students will create a 3-D paper puppet of their animal. This lesson was developed by Nancy McGuire as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

Students will use their notes, sketches, and paper hand puppet from the previous lessons in this unit to write and illustrate a booklet about their animal and the global region where it lives/lived.  Students will understand the correlation between art and literacy as they create a short booklet about their animal and its habitat. Students will prepare to share these short stories with their peers in the form of a collaborative puppet show when they have completed their illustrated booklets. This lesson was developed by Nancy McGuire as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

The NC Kids' Exploration Journals are a fun educational tool to help youth explore their communities and natural surroundings! Each journal contains: 18 multidisciplinary activities with guided prompts, 6 lined journal pages for recording observations and reflections, and 4 blank pages for individual creativity.

The digital versions of the journal are designed to be printed out for students either as individual activities or in its entirety so that they can explore their school yard, local park, or own backyard. Though designed for 1st - 5th-graders, older audiences may enjoy them too! They are also available in both English and Spanish languages.

While supplies last, hard copies of the journals are currently available for free to teachers by contacting karen.ipock@ncdcr.gov.

Toony Tool is a free web tool that works on any device with a web browser. It allows students to be creative as they create their own cartoon/realistic scenes, comic scenes, posters or memes. It does not require a login. Pictures can be uploaded as well. Students can download or share their creations.