Happy Bat Week!

Bat week is an annual international celebration of the role of bats in nature. Step outside around dusk and take a few moments to look for bats in your neighborhood.

Iowa is home to nine bat species: little brown bat, big brown bat, red bat, hoary bat, silver-haired bat, Indiana bat (federally endangered species), evening bat, eastern pipistrelle, and northern myotis.

Try this fun game from the KinderNature website to help children understand how bats use echolocation to catch insects.

Bats Eat Bugs

Have all players stand in a large circle. Choose one child to be the bat and place a blindfold over her eyes. Choose five other children to be bugs inside the circle.

The bat moves around inside the circle calling out “Bug, bug, where are you?” The bugs call back “Here, here!” as if the sound was bouncing off of them back to the bat. When the bat hears the echo, she attempts to catch the bugs by tagging them. The bat may call as many times as she wishes. Each time the bugs must answer.

 The last bug to be caught becomes the new bat.

Fun Bat Facts

• A small bat eats between 1,000 and 2,000 small insects every night. Bats use sonar to find dinner when it’s pitch black out. Bats make noises, which bounce off the bugs and back to the bats’ ears, where the sound is picked up by the bats’ specialized hearing.
• Bats are our only flying mammals in the state.
• One of Iowa’s few true hibernators, bats hibernate all winter until there are insects to chow down on again.
• Within three weeks of being born, young bats are taking flight. They grow quickly, being full-grown in about a month after birth. Young bats take off for their own roosts once they’re weaned.
• Bats hang upside down because it allows them to roost in places where predators can’t reach them. It also allows them to get into the air faster by falling to achieve flight.

Helpful Websites

Bats Bats Everywhere

Bat Conservation International

BatsLIVE

Project Edubat

Fun Nature Themed Games

Play is essential for a child’s development and for learning life skills. Try these fun games from the KinderNature website to keep your students active all year long.

Bats Eat Bugs

Have all players stand in a large circle. Choose one child to be the bat and place a blindfold over her eyes. Choose five other children to be bugs inside the circle.

The bat moves around inside the circle calling out “Bug, bug, where are you?” The bugs call back “Here, here!” as if the sound was bouncing off of them back to the bat. When the bat hears the echo, she attempts to catch the bugs by tagging them. The bat may call as many times as she wishes. Each time the bugs must answer.

The last bug to be caught becomes the new bat.

Camo Frog

Define a playing area using ropes or cones, etc.

Spread small colored plastic frogs (green, yellow, red, and blue) 1 of each color for every child throughout the grassy playing area. (You can use colored macaroni instead.)

Line the children up at one end of the marked area.

Show the children a plastic frog.

Explain that they will be going on a frog hunt.

When you say “go”, they are to walk out and find only one frog.

After the first round, line the frogs up according to color.

(You are building a pictograph.)

Ask the children to notice which color was found the most.

Repeat the rounds, each time adding to the pictograph and comparing the number of each color.

Usually the red and blues are discovered before the yellow and greens.

Ask the children why green might be a good color for a frog that lives in a pond covered with green plants. You can then introduce the term, “camouflage”.

Owl I Spy
Have the children sit in a large circle. Ask one child to be the owl and leave the room. While the owl is out, designate a leader to begin a motion (for example: tapping toes, blinking, turning heads).

All the children in the circle need to follow the leader. Bring the owl back into the room and have them watch with their owl eyes and guess who is being the leader.

Sticky Spider Web Play

When an orb weaving spider spins its web, it makes some strands sticky and leaves some strands dry. The prey will be trapped in the web but the spider will be able to move about.

Hang a large laminated web on the wall. Make long loops with the sticky side out of clear packing tape. Put these on most but not all of the strands.

Let the children take turns throwing cotton ball “bugs” into the web. The cotton balls can be reused but after a few rounds of play the tape needs to be replaced.

Life as a Honeybee

Change your classroom and children in to a colony of bees. Select a queen bee and have her wear a crown and sit on a chair in the middle of the classroom. Select one drone to sit with the queen. The rest of the children are the workers and baby bees. The workers wear aprons. Some of the workers may feed the queen, drone, and the babies honey cereal. Other workers may pack pollen cells (use blocks), clean the hive, stand guard, or collect pollen and nectar.

Nature Themed Snack Ideas

Celebrate Food Day by introducing your students to healthy nature themed snacks today and throughout the school year. These “recipes” are from the KinderNature website.

Monarch Butterfly Citrus Snacks

Place two orange segments per child flat on the table making a butterfly shape. Add black string licorice antennae.

Bunny Snack

Use a pear half as the rabbit’s body.
Two mini carrots form the ears.
Raisins make the eyes.
And a cherry makes the nose.
Add a marshmallow for the tail.

Peanut Butter Edible Clay

1 cup Creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup Instant powdered milk
3 Tbsp. Honey
Peanuts, raisins, chocolate chips, mini M&Ms and coconut for decorating (optional)

Stir the peanut butter, powdered milk and honey together in a medium-size bowl until dough is smooth. If mixture is dry and crumbly, add more honey. If it is too moist and sticky, add more powdered milk. Have children form their clay into a yummy edible animal. They can then decorate their artwork with peanuts, raisins, chocolate chips or coconut. Refrigerate unused clay in a sealed container.

Caterpillar Rolls

Pop-can dough (bread or biscuits)
Mini marshmallows
Mini M&M’s, mini chocolate chips, or raisins
Straight pretzel sticks

Divide dough into small equal sized pieces. Roll each piece into a ball. Place 4 balls in a straight line on a baking sheet (balls should be touching). Bake according to directions on package. Cool rolls and decorate.

To decorate: heat each marshmallow in microwave for 5 to 10 seconds or until it becomes soft, plump and sticky when pressed. Firmly press two marshmallows on caterpillar faces for eyes. Press M&M’s, chocolate chips, or raisins into each marshmallow. Place two straight pretzels into the top of head for antennas. Pierce one marshmallow with each pretzel stick for tip of antennae. – I’ve also used tube icing to decorate with spots, lines and shapes.

Fossil Layer Sandwiches

Make a six-layer stack sandwich by alternating the bread type (pumpernickel, white, and wheat) and the colored cream cheese. Add raisins (fossils) to find in your earth layers.

Tasty Turtles
Put peanut butter or cream cheese on a Ritz cracker. Place 5 raisins for head and legs and top with another Ritz cracker.

Peachy Spiders

Push 4 pretzel sticks into each side of a peach half for the spiders’ legs. Place 2 raisins on the peach for the spiders’ eyes.

Bird Nests

1 bag peanut butter chips (10 oz.)

1 Tbsp. Solid shortening (Crisco)
1 5 oz can chow mien noodles
1 bag M&M peanut candy or small jelly beans

Melt entire bag of chips and 1 Tbsp. of shortening slowly in microwave or double boiler on stove top. If using microwave, heat full power at intervals of 30 seconds or less until chips melt. You want the chips and shortening to be well blended and creamy and hot. Immediately pour the can of chow mien noodles into the peanut butter mixture and toss lightly to coat noodles. Do this quickly, making sure the noodles are evenly coated. Drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper and gently form into the shape of a nest, leaving a hollowed area in the center. You may need to reform your nests slightly as they cool. Place three M&Ms or jelly bean in the nest as the “eggs”. Each batch makes approximately 14 nests.