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Log Hotel
Activity Information:
Grade Appropriate Level: K-3
Duration: 1 hour
Materials: picture book Log Hotel by Anne Schreiber, 1994 ISBN:0- 590-27289-2, samples of decaying log, paper and pencils for recording
Audio Log Hotel book here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVqvDTa81Ek
Additional resources: Life under a log nature challenge video.
Students can also explore how a log hotel is also a food source for animals like bears. Here’s a YouTube video of a bear eating grubs from a rotting log:
Objective:
The purpose of this lesson is to arouse the students’ curiosity about nature and to demonstrate to them how nature uses its own recycling program. This lesson is meant to be part of an ongoing study of the interconnected web of life.
Prescribed Learning Outcomes:
Language Arts, Science, Mathematics, Personal Planning
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Students will read the story Log Hotel and record information in their journals.
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Students will examine the process of decay and learn new vocabulary.
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Students will demonstrate social responsibility through working in groups
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Students will keep a tally of their findings.
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Students will employ the 3L’s when studying nature: Look, Learn, Leave it
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Skills:
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Thinking critically, creatively and reflectively
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Making connections to other areas of life outside the classroom
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Describing, predicting, exploring, investigating, recording
Introductory Activity:
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Read the story Log Hotel to the students. Take time to show all of them the pictures. The story tells about how a hundred-year-old oak tree falls, becomes a log and eventually is turned back into soil. During the process many plants and animals move into the log hotel, each contributing to nature’s recycling program. The story ends with the cycle beginning again as an acorn begins to grow and “It, too, will become a log hotel”. Discuss how the log may offer an important food source for animals like bears.
Suggested Instructional Strategies:
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After reading the story to the students, encourage them to think of questions and predictions that may be answered within their table groups.
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Once the students are set up in small groups, give them a decaying log sample to study.
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On paper, in a simple chart format, have the students record information about the plant and animal life they discover.
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On large chart paper, share the findings of the class and take time to answer any questions and to follow up on any predictions.
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Return the log samples to the forest after the lesson is completed to ensure the plants, bugs and animals who rely on that log can continue to do so!
Suggested Assessment Strategies:
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teacher observation as students work with the log samples
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observe how students demonstrate cooperation and share ideas
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assessment of the recorded work (neatness, accuracy, clarity of ideas)
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Cross-Curricular Interests:
Environment and Sustainability
Suggested Links:
Lesson plan submitted by: Donelda Henderson
Prepared/adapted by: Eve Simon for FORED BC
