October 2023

One Cute Vampire?

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Academic Standards

 

 

Reading Objective:

Students will identify ways that vampire bats are actually not so scary—and could even be considered helpful.

Reading Level:

Lexile : 480L; GRL: J

 

Next Generation Science Standards:

Practice 3: Planning and Carrying Out Investigations

2-LS4-1: Observe Plants and Animals in Their Habitats

 

Vocabulary:

 pup, colony, saliva

Use these questions to check students’ understanding and stimulate discussion:

 

1. What are vampire bats like?
(small and furry)

2. What do vampire bats use for food?
(only blood)

3. What happens when one vampire bat has no food?
(another bat spits blood into its mouth)

4. Do you think vampire bats are cute or scary?

Go online to print or project the Reading Checkpoint.

 

  • Vampire bats drink half their weight in blood every night.
  • They drink so much blood that sometimes their bodies get too heavy to fly. Then they pee to make their bodies lighter.
  • Vampire bats can run, jump, and hop. This helps them follow a bigger animal, pounce on it, and run along its back to find a good place to get a drink of blood.

Materials: Copies of the skill sheet, crayons or markers, kid scissors, paper clips (optional: tape measure)

Overview: Kids color and cut out paper bats, fold them, and test how they fly. Will the bats fly better with a paper clip on their noses or without?

Directions:

  1. Before the lesson, make copies of the skill sheet so that each child has a paper bat to color and cut out. Make one for yourself so you can demonstrate how to fold it.
  2. Start the lesson. Remind kids they just learned about one type of bat. Point out that bats are the only mammals that can truly fly for long distances. Bats fly by flapping their wings. Their wings are like our hands, except bats have webbing between the “fingers.”
  3. Let students color and cut out their bats. Then they can fold the colored sides together along the center dotted line. Fold down the wings using the side dotted lines.
  4. Predict! Will the bat fly better with a paper clip on its nose or without? Will it fly further or faster?
  5. Let kids fly their bats, with and without the paper clips. If you like, they can use a tape measure to compare how far the bats flew.