Camouflage Detectives

Many animals have special coloring, markings or physical features that help them blend in with their surroundings. Help your students become camouflage detectives and discover creatures hiding in plain sight around your schoolyard or a local park. How many expert hiders can you find?

Talk with your students about why animals are hard to see in nature. Ask children to describe the color, size and shape of different animals, such as squirrel, bird, turtle. Look for animals that live in trees. How are they different from animals that live in the water?  Why do some animals want to hide?  Can you find an animal that is hiding? 

Questions to probe:

What do you think might live in this area?

What color do you think they will be?

What size of creature might be here?

What do you think they need to stay alive?   

Many animals have physical features to scare away predators. In the spirit of Halloween, explore some of these “costumes” with students. Invite students to use the animal inspiration to design their own “scary” outfits. Whether they simply draw their designs or actually create them, stage a fashion show in which they explain their idea and the animal defenses that inspired it.

Camouflage Adventures

Can you find the Mitten Game?
Play a hiding game with a bright colored mitten. Have one student cover their eyes. Hide the mitten. The class helps guide the “finder” using their body language…..COLD: close to the floor, means you are not near the mitten.  WARM: hands to the ceiling, means you are getting close to the glove.  Was it easy to find the bright mitten?

Let’s try a dark mitten. Play the game again and compare. Was it harder to find the dark mitten?  Would a clear glove be hard to find? If you were an animal would you want to be easy for find? What would you wear if you were in front of your school?

Hide and Seek

Encourage children to bring in old T-shirts. Take art supplies outside and let children decorate the shirts. Challenge some to use a bright color and others to try to create patterns and colors that would blend in with the local environment. When the shirts are dry, have children pull them on over their clothes, and play a game of hide-and-seek. Which children are easiest to find?

Reading Connections

Barrett, J. 1988. Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing. Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Dell, P. J. 2006. Why Do Tigers Have Stripes? A Book about Camouflage. Capstone Press.

Fredericks, A. D., and K. Povelite. 2000. Clever Camouflagers. T&N Children’s Publishing.

Gilpin, D. 2010. 3-D Close Up: Animal Camouflage. Advantage Publishers Group.

Goodman, S. E. and M. Doolittle. 2001. Claws, Coats, and Camouflage: The Ways Animals Fit Into Their Worlds. Lerner Publishing Group.

Heller, R. 1992. How to Hide a Butterfly: and other insects. Penguin Group Inc (USA).

Heller, R. 1995. How to Hide a Meadow Frog: and Other Amphibians. Penguin Group (USA).

Helman, A., and G. Jecan. 2008. Hide and Seek: Nature’s Best Vanishing Acts. Walker & Company.

Kalman, B.  2010. How do animals hide? Crabtree Publishing Company.

Lionni, L.  2000. A Color of His Own. Random House Children's Books.

Otto, C. and M. Lloyd. 1996. What Color is Camouflage?. HarperCollins Publishers.

Pledger, M. 2004. Hiding in the Woods: A Maurice Pledger Nature Trails Book. Silver Dolphin Books.

Rustad, M. 2009. Animal Camouflage in the Forest. Capstone Press.

Tildes, P. L. 2000. Animals in Camouflage. San Val.

Whitehouse, P. 2003. Hiding in a Forest. Demco Media.

Wood, A. J., and N. Palin. 1996. Hidden Pictures: Find a Feast of Camouflaged Creatures. Lerner Publishing Group.