One of my favorite bat activities to do every year is to tell students the number of mosquitoes that one bat can eat in an hour… 600! If that doesn’t make you love bats, I don’t know what will!! Then I put students into 6 groups, give each group 100 mosquitoes to cut out, and a paper plate. Each group cuts out 100 mosquitoes and glues them to the plate.
This is such a great {and disgusting} visual. You can download 100 mosquitoes by clicking here.
We also talked about the size of bats. The smallest bat is the Bumblebee Bat with a 5 inch wingspan and the largest is the Flying Fox with a 6 foot wingspan. We measured these two lengths and cut yarn to show them.
If you want the signs for these lengths and for the mosquitoes, click here.
Next,we wrote about the things we have learned about bats. We filled out a graphic organizer first, then transfered it to our final draft. Click here for these pages.
I love this one, “Bats are the best thing that ever happened to me.” Too cute!
Tomorrow we will be playing a fun game outside that is very similar to Marco Polo. One or two students will be blindfolded {bats} and the other students will be walking around them {mosquitoes.} The bats will call out “Echo” and the mosquitoes will call out “Location.” The bats will have to tag the mosquitoes. The kids love this and it really makes that great vocabulary word, echolocation, stick in their little brains.
I love your ideas! I'm doing bats the week after next and I think these will complement my plans perfectly. 🙂 Thanks!
Marvelous Multiagers!
Thanks for sharing!! I am doing bats in 2 weeks and cant wait to play the game and use the mosquitos!!
God bless ya! I spent my entire planning look for my bat activities! NO IDEA WHERE IT FLEW OFF TO! And, sadly, I don't have the file saved. This is awesome!
Thank you, this will come in handy next week 🙂 Your ideas are adorable!
Jennifer @ Herding Kats In Kindergarten
SO FUN!
A Teeny Tiny Teacher
I'm getting ready to do some bat activities and these will be a great addition to our study! Thanks for sharing!
Teachin' First
I love your bat ideas! We are getting ready to do bats soon. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much for sharing. The mosquito visual is FABULOUS! LOVE IT!
OMGosh, your students are SO lucky! Thanks for sharing. I just gave you the Versatile Blogger award! Stop by for more info: http://deceptivelyeducational.blogspot.com/p/blog-awards.html
Love the bat ideas! Thanks for sharing. I teach a k/1 combination class and they LOVED playing the echo location game at recess today! I hate mosquitoes (they love me!). So that activity was pure fun! Love the website too!
Oh my word…how CUTE is this post!!
Did this activity today! My kids LOVED it! Thanks for sharing!!
Caitlin
http://kindergartensmiles.blogspot.com
I'm going to have to try this with my class. Thanks
Great ideas! My kiddos are so excited to learn about bats. I love the idea of putting the mosquitos onto the plates for a great "visual." 🙂
Jennifer
http://www.haysfirstgradeteam.blogspot.com
I love the Marco Polo Bat Themed Echolocation activity. What a great way to get the kids up and moving while teaching an important concept about bats.
I hope you don't mind that I have added a link to this blog in my article about bats. http://www.squidoo.com/little-brown-bat
I am just seeing this! I found a link from Erica Bohrer's site. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Echo, Location game! I also love the 100 mosquitos in one hour. Great visual!
I meant 600! Wow!!!