Free printable animal tracks flashcards to play nature detective

 

Hello my friends! Teacher Omi (grandma) here with some fun winter science lesson plans for you. Today at the Omschool, we are having a big blizzard, so the ground is covered with snow. Opi (grandpa) was clearing the snow and noticed that lots of different animal friends had visited. How did he know? Yes, you  guessed it. Because he saw animal tracks in the snow! But the mystery was, which animal tracks are they. So we decided to play nature detectives and thought you might like to join us. But first you'll need some free printable animal tracks flashcards to help. 

We can figure out who visited by looking at the footprints and sometimes, tail prints that they left behind. Let's begin by printing those free printable animal tracks identification cards to help us solve the mystery of the who visited our yard.  You can use these to make your own field guide. 

Exploration America offers free printable animal tracks flashcards for you to print out, cut and assemble into a booklet. You can even use these as animal identification coloring pages. Maine.gov offers free downloadable printables of animal footprints and the Minnesota DNR (Department of Natural Resources) has 14 more free animal tracks printables. Massachusetts.gov has free printable animal identification flashcards.  

Along with our field guides, nature detectives need a magnifying glass. A camera would help, to take pictures of the tracks in situ (as they are). We can then make them into a nature scrapbook. We might also bring tweezers and some small plastic bags to collect any specimens we find, of fur. If we find any scat (animal droppings, or poop), we'll just leave it there and take pictures! 

Nature science detective kit for cool back to school activities with free printables

Looking for cool back to school activities? Here are nature science lesson plans to make nature detective kits to explore wildlife science concepts. Free printables included. Kids will love playing nature CSI investigators! Homeschooling parents will love these inexpensive, hands-on science lesson plans. 

To make nature science detective kits, you will need one of each of these items per student:

--large gallon size zipper bag or cheap carry-all bag to store supplies 

--plastic magnifying glass (available in bulk at Great Party, Dollar Tree or Oriental Trading)

--cheap one-subject notebook 

--pocket folder 

--nitrol disposable gloves (latex free) 

--tweezers or cotton swabs (both would be useful, but use cotton swabs to save money) 

--3 or 4 specimen bags (snack size Ziploc) 

--sheet of label stickers --pen and pencil 

-- roll of invisible Scotch tape 

--several pieces of yarn or string 

--box of crayons or colored pencils 

--measuring tape (here's a free printable measuring tape) 

How to Use Nature Detective Kits: Make kit assembly part of  the lesson. Set out supplies in stations and give students gallon zipper bag and supplies list. This provides experience in counting, sorting and organizing. 

Using stickers, kids label notebook: Investigator (name)____________ or Detective (name)____________. Label bags: Exhibit A, B, C or Evidence. As evidence is collected, data and date should be added. For example: "beetle exoskeleton 9-3-2022" 

Go on nature investigation hunts around your neighborhood, school playground or camp. Assign students different items to investigate, native to your area. Students should not keep living specimens, but they might bring a bug box to temporarily house and examine a living critter. Look for evidence of living creatures: bug carcasses, exoskeletons, fallen leaves, feathers, owl pellets, seed pods, rocks, fallen nest, bits of animal fur, bark samples, plants, flowers and rocks. 

Here are free printable animal tracking guides and footprints. Use these as coloring pages also. 

Here's another free printable animal tracking guide. 

Here are free printable animal coloring pages and here's another set of animal printables and coloring pages. 

Have students draw living creatures, homes and habitats: spider's web, bird's nest, wasp's nest, rabbit hole, ant hill, scat (animal droppings). Students should record when and where they observed it. Students shouldn't touch but may observe scat(animal droppings) or dead animal remains. In class, have children discuss and hypothesize on findings at their level of reasoning. Students might create a natural history museum displaying what they have found. Students can act as young docent guides, explaining discoveries to visitors. This makes a superb activity for parent-teacher conferences, which come early in the year before teachers have had time to collect much student work. It's ideal for summer camp, too