Fourth Grade

Pre- and Post-Visit Activities

Explore pre- and post-visit activities designed for every grade level. Use the links below to find lessons, videos, and book ideas that help prepare your students for their outdoor experience—and extend learning back in the classroom.

Animal and Plant Adaptations

Activities/Videos

Adaptations in Plants and Animals (YouTube)

What Are Animal Adaptations? (YouTube)

How Plants Adapt and React to Their Environment (YouTube)

Books

4th Grade Animal Adaptations Collection

Plant and Animal Adaptations by World Book

This book introduces plant and animal adaptations that allow for survival in the wild. The comic book-style book offers readers a visual learning experience with unconventional characters designed to make complex science topics fun and easy to understand. The book pairs humor with real-life examples to help make even the most difficult topics approachable.

Creature Features: Twenty-Five Animals Explain Why They Look the Way They Do by Steve Jenkins

Even as babies, we humans pay close attention to faces. Observing another person's features and expressions tells us whether they are happy, angry, excited, or sad. And when we look at an animal, it's hard not to imagine that its face is communicating human feelings. This isn't true, of course. Squinty eyes, an upturned mouth, or another odd expression is probably there because, in some way, it helps that animal survive. Packed with many cool facts and visuals on where certain animals live and what they eat, this book captures twenty-five humorous—and very true—explanations of why animals look the way they do to exist in this world.

Plants Fight Back: Discover the Clever Adaptations Plants Use to Survive! by Lisa J Amstutz

Botany for kids! Beautiful illustrations in this nature book provide information on the clever adaptations that help plants survive. As readers turn the pages of this beautifully illustrated book, they will find fun and poetic language describing various situations where different plants find themselves under attack. This is followed by informative, science-based lessons about these plants and their survival methods. Backmatter includes a glossary and a STEM challenge activity to use at home or in the classroom.