Below are ideas for extending this topic beyond the activity and exploration you just completed.

• Lesson Assessment : After watching the videos, ask students to draw an animal having lunch.
• Read-aloud books online: These nonfiction books will get your students thinking and talking about the animals they met in this lesson.
• Videos: Watching these videos will let students figure out what caterpillars, cows, toads, and pandas eat.
  
• Activity: A simple bird feeder can give students a chance to observe birds up close.
• Activity: Take a nature walk or a field trip.
  

Epic offers books online for teachers to use for free. Just click “Get Started” to register.

• Backyard Wildlife: Woodpeckers
• Backyard Wildlife: Raccoons
  

With photos and basic text, these books expand on what students have learned about these common woodland animals. Each book includes a glossary of vocabulary words.

A feeder filled with birdseed can attract finches, sparrows, and chickadees for your class to observe. If you have the budget for it, buy a clear plastic feeder that attaches to your window, like this or this. Check your hardware store for other options.

If you’re feeling crafty, transform an old soda bottle into a seed feeder with the instructions here or the gadget sold here.

Insect-eating birds, like woodpeckers, nuthatches, juncos, and jays, like high fat food. To attract them, you can get a suet cake from a hardware store, along with an inexpensive suet holder like this one. Or you make your own with a recipe from Birds & Blooms and pack it in an old cup like this. The birds will be happy either way.

• Visit a pond where students can feed the ducks. Though many people feed ducks bread, that’s not the best food for them. We recommend uncooked rolled oats or birdseed. (Both are available in most grocery stores.)

• Visit a farm where they can learn about several animals (including chickens, which scratch like quail).

• Walk in the park or the woods and watch for animals, just as Doug did. Even an urban park is likely to have squirrels, sparrows, pigeons, and maybe a few gophers.

Ask your students what each animal eats and then watch the videos to discover the answers.

• What do caterpillars eat?
• What do cows eat?
• What do toads eat?
• What do giant pandas eat?

After watching the videos, have students complete the drawing prompt assessment .