Bats science lesson

There are some homeschool science topics that are easily made seasonal, bats for instance work very well in October when everyone has bats hanging all over, so I made an executive decision to stop our insect studies and start a Bat science lesson, that’s the joy of being Mom, I can change the plans.

Bats science lesson supplies (for both craft and books)

{This post contains affiliate links marked with an *}

Bats craft supplies: toilet paper roll, Construction Paper*, Pip-Squeaks Marker Tower*,  Fiskars 5 Inch Kids Scissors*,  poster paint 12 pack*

Bats books and videos: Zipping, Zapping, Zooming Bats (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)*(I have lost track of how many times we’ve checked this book out), National Geographic Readers: Bats* (Batman is nuts for this one), Bats (I love Gail Gibbons books), Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot about that: Batty for Bats (this series in on Netflix and is the inspiration for our activity), The Magic School Bus: The Complete Series (there’s a bat episode and this is just a good series to have, I believe it’s also on Netflix)

Bat craft

Ordinarily I’d put this in a separate post, but since it was used for the Bat science lesson I figure I should keep them both together.

Bats science lesson activities

One of the big things we learned is that bats use echolocation to navigate around.  And when they “hear” something that sounds like food they start making even more clicking sounds to find it.

So, we, and by we I really mean the boys, primarily Batman; set up an obstacle course for our bats to navigate.  He took his “traps” (I think that’s what they were, maybe) and created an obstacle course of crumpled paper for the bat to navigate.

It was so cute watching them pretend to hear the clicks and say, “Oh no something is here, better go another way.”

Then we talked about how scientists studied bats for a very long time and figured out how to use their echolocation for our boats and submarines to use sonar.  Then they had to find a submarine toy and a boat toy and act out how they use sonar.

They also learned most bats eat insects.  So they cut up a bunch of little pieces of paper and said that was the insects for the bath to eat, then they stuffed it inside their bats.

There are some days I just love to sit back and see how their minds work.

Follow Ticia Adventures in Mommydom’s board Halloween on Pinterest.

Adapting this bat science lesson for older kids

So far this is a fairly obvious lesson for kindergarten or preschool, but there’s not much for elementary aged kids.  Here’s a few extension activities:

1. Compare how bats use sonar to other mammals that use sonar (whales and dolphins).
2. Compare bats and birds.  How are they different?
3. For middle school: where did the idea of bats drinking your blood come from?  Do any bats drink your blood?

A few more bat lesson ideas for you

• Bat and Ghost bunting
• bat silhouette
• paper plate bats
• hanging bat craft