Younger Students Understand the Big, Good Wolf

After a teacher receives a fellowship to attend an international wolf center, a 2-week unit is created to help students see the importance of the predator–prey relationships. In this articl... See More

After a teacher receives a fellowship to attend an international wolf center, a 2-week unit is created to help students see the importance of the predator–prey relationships. In this article, students are introduced to snowshoes, flashlights and scissors to understand how rabbit paws, predator eyes, and wolf teeth might work. Students identify wolf, rabbit and deer tracks in the snow and they create their own track molds using rubber hoof/paw prints and plaster casts. The teacher incorporates measurement activities into the lessons by setting up stations that use metric measuring tapes to measure actual animal pelts, skeletons or rubber paw prints of various animals. The teacher then introduces some facts about wolves using trade books and helps students to understand that wolves aren’t such big, bad creatures after all. Students learn that wolves are wild, intelligent predators that are able to care for themselves and their families and are an important part of a food chain. The teacher uses a nice combination of hands-on activities and literacy resources to introduce young students to what might otherwise be a disturbing natural phenomenon.