Unusual Animals

Content Objectives

Students will:

• Learn about the concept of unusual animals.
• Access prior knowledge and build background about animal behavior.
• Explore and apply understanding of the concept normal and unusual animal behavior.

Language Objectives

Students will:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the concept unusual animals.
• Orally use words that identify different types of unusual animals.
• Extend oral vocabulary by discussing how unusual animals use their remarkable characteristics to help themselves and people.
• Use key concept words [normal, unusual].

Other

Explain

• Use the slideshow to review the key concept words.
• Explain that students are going to learn about unusual animals:
• Normal animals are animals that you see every day or behave as you might expect them to.
• An unusual animal is one that behaves in an extraordinary way.
• Unusual animals can be entertaining, and some are very helpful to humans.

Model

• After the host introduces the slideshow, point to the photo on screen. Ask students: What do you see in this picture? (a girl with a dog).
• Ask students: Is there anything unusual about this dog? (no, it is a normal dog).
• Say: Unusual animals are not like the dog you see in this picture. They have special talents that can be fun to watch and helpful to humans. What are some unusual animals? (seeing• eye pony, elephant painting with its trunk, a seal balancing a ball on its nose, etc.)

Guided Practice

• Guide students through the next four slides, showing them different unusual animals. Always have the students describe why the animal is unusual.

Apply

• Play the games that follow. Have them discuss with their partner the different topics that appear during the Talk About It feature.
• After the first game, ask students to tell about a time they were entertained by an unusual animal. After the second game, have them discuss how they might be helped by an unusual animal.

Close

• Ask students: If you could have any unusual animal as a pet, what kind of animal would it be and why?
• Summarize for students that some animals do unusual things, such as an elephant painting with his trunk. Animals can be trained to help people. Encourage them to think about other animals that are trained to help people.