I absolutely LOVE teaching my students about bats. It’s a week that I look forward to every single year. The students just get so excited and can’t wait to learn more. This year after learning about bats all week, I decided to transform my classroom into a Bat Cave for the day.
This will definitely be a new annual tradition. My students were so unbelievably excited. I wish I would have videotaped their reactions when they came in this morning. When the students walked down the hall, my door was closed and the lights were off.
The night before, I had pulled down the blinds and covered the windows with black tablecloths. I also covered the desks and tables with black tablecloths.
I also hung plastic bats from Dollar Tree onto my lanterns.
Along with some other Dollar Tree and Walmart items (plastic bag bats, mesh fabric, purple Bat lights and LED lights, etc.) the room came together pretty quickly.
It was such a simple transformation that I wondered if it would hold up to the hype of the day. (It definitely did!) Before school started, I closed the door and turned off the lights. I put in our weekly newsletter to have the students bring in flashlights on Friday. When the bell rang, I opened up the classroom door and whispered for them to come in. I had bat noises playing using You Tube on Repeat. Click HERE for the link to the one I used. I had this playing ALL day. It added so much to the feel of the “cave.”
The students got out their flashlights and came into the room. I had a glow stick bracelet on everyone’s desk along with a bat dot-to-dot activity. The students loved using their flashlights to work.
The purple lights and flashlights added such a wonderful glow to the room.
What activities did we complete about bats?
We learned about bats all week. We read a lot of nonfiction books about bats and created this anchor chart to we could reference it all week.
We wrote a lot about bats, and the students were great about using this as a helper.
We completed these Bat Flip Books, which were a great addition to our bat week.
What did we do on Bat Cave Day?
On Bat Cave Day, we spent a lot of time with bat fiction using the book Stellaluna. We completed a lot of activities in my Bats Fun with Fiction packet and my FREE Bat packet including cutting out mosquitoes and measuring bats.
I made these bat headbands for everyone with foam bats that I found at Hobby Lobby.
You also HAVE to show this cute echolocation video.
It is such a catchy little tune that I found myself singing it throughout the day.
The Bat Cave transformation really didn’t take too long, and it was completely and totally worth it!
The students must have told me a hundred times today that this was the best day ever. Some of the best reactions…”Now, this is what I call a Friday!” “Thank you so much for doing this for us, Mrs. Southard. It is really cool!” “You are just like Ms. Frizzle!”
Want to know which activities we used during our Bat Week and Bat Cave Day? Click on the links below.
I want the students to be able to use plenty of hands-on activities in these tubs. For this first round, I have placed the following items and activities in my tubs.
6. Dice – Students roll two dice and write a number sentence on the dry erase board.
I am excited to continue adding new things to the tubs this year. I can change these up and use a variety of STEM activities as well as reading skills. I think these will be a great addition to our classroom.
After reading 
