We suggest students work in groups of four. Homeschool students can work on their own.

This activity works best on a low pile carpet. If your classroom has a smooth floor (such as linoleum), you’ll need a bath towel to serve as the work area for each group of 4 students.

Make “Beaks”

Each student will need a “pointy beak” and a “duck beak” to experiment with.

Here’s how to make a “pointy beak”:

• Fold a straw in half.
• Make sure that the ends of the straws are even. (If they aren’t, trim them with scissors.)
• Store your “beaks” in a cup so they stay folded.

Here’s how to make a “duck beak”:

• You will use half of your Dixie cups to make “duck beaks.” Leave the other half of your Dixie cups whole as they will serve as “stomach cups” for students.
• For half the Dixie cups, use scissors to make a cut from the lip to the base of the cup.

• Make a matching cut on the other side of the cup.
• Squeeze the sides together to make a beak. (Quacking is optional.)

Set Up Stations

Mark off a test area for each group of four students.

• If you have a low-pile carpet, mark a 3’ x 3’ square with masking tape.
• If you have hard floors, spread out a bath towel and tape down the corners.

Prepare “Bird Food” and “Rocks”

For each group, you’ll need to prepare two cups. One filled with model “bird food” and the other filled with model “rocks.”

• Divide the 8 oz paper cups in half.
• For half of the cups, fill each about one-third full with dried macaroni “bird food.”
• For the other half of the cups, fill each about one-third full with dried beans “rocks.”

Separate Supplies for Easy Distribution

At the start of the activity, each student needs a worksheet, “pointy beak,” “duck beak,” and “stomach cup.” Each group also needs a cup of “bird food.”

Each group will need a cup of “rocks” later in the activity. You may want to organize or separate supplies for easier classroom distribution.

Prepare Your Classroom Forest Before Class

Each tree takes a wall space measuring about 32" wide by 55" tall (about the size of a door). You can build your trees on an empty wall, a bulletin board, or on a door. The activity works best if you have three different bark patterns, but if you don’t have enough space (or time) to make three trees, you can make one tree and two stumps.

To make your trees and/or stumps, follow these steps:

• Cut out the pieces of each tree and stump by cutting on the dashed lines of the printouts. Then cut out the moths, following the instructions on the "Moths for Teachers" printouts.
• Arrange the pieces on your wall to make trees and stumps, using glue dots or push pins to hold the paper in place. Watch this video to see how we did it.

Hide the Moths

You are going to hide paper moths for your students to find, and then your students will hide moths for you to find. Put a glue dot on the back of each moth and place it on a tree or stump — hide all nine moths. Put most of them on the bark that match, but put a few on the bark that don’t match, so that they are easy for your students to find.

Print enough picture cards so that each student can have a parent animal or a baby animal. We suggest printing one copy of the parent animal cards and enough baby animals for the rest of the class since many babies can group with the same parent. If you have 30 students, you’ll need all 6 parent animal pictures and 24 assorted baby animal pictures. For homeschool or small classes, print out one of copy of each page, cut out the cards, and have students match mothers and babies. Cut out the pictures and put each one in its own envelope to distribute to your students.

Each student will create their own wind-proof umbrella, but will need a partner to help with a few steps.

Decide if You Will Buy Playdough or Make Your Own

To make your own playdough, slowly add 2½ cups water to a mixture of 5 cups of flour and 1¼ cups of salt. Stir, then knead the dough. If it’s too sticky, add more flour.

Prepare Wind Test Station

• Make a giant fan by folding a 22” x 28” sheet of poster board accordion style. If you have a two smaller sheets of poster board, tape them together, then fold.
  
• Make one reusable umbrella stand for each student by pressing clay or playdough into the bottom of a Dixie cup. The cup should be a little more than halfway full.
• Clear a big, flat area, such as a tabletop, to serve as a test station. It should be at least 36 inches across—big enough to hold four umbrellas without touching.

We've provided Umbrella Top Inspiration sheets to help students who get frustrated when they try to improve their umbrellas. We suggest you let students try on their own, providing Inspiration Sheets only to those who need help.

As an optional activity, we suggest having students observe and discuss how plants respond to light.

If you like, you can grow your own experimental plant by planting bean, sunflower, or corn seeds a week before you experiment. Buying a bean seedling or an herb such as thyme will also work.

Setup

Get your box ready by cutting a hole that’s about two inches square in one top corner. Hold the box up to the light and check for any other places the light might get in. If there are holes other than the one you cut, tape aluminum foil over them since foil is opaque and it won’t let any light through. Make sure your box is large enough so when your plant is a few inches tall, the whole thing will still to fit inside the box.