Grades K-7 | 1.5 hours
Note: We recommend planning an extra half hour for journaling and exploration after the lesson.
Explore the museum’s collections through activities that will develop observational, recording, and sharing skills. Students will create several nature journal entries, reinforcing the scientific importance of keeping good notes and clear drawings.
If your class is already journaling, please bring your journals to the museum! Ensure that students have sufficient room to make several entries on blank paper. If not, the museum will supply a small journal for each student.
Curriculum Links
- Kindergarten: make observations, share information, compare organisms
- Grade 1: communicate observations, experiences, thinking in a variety of ways, classification
- Grade 2: interpret observations, classify animals, make inferences
- Grade 3: ask questions that foster investigation and exploration, measure, plants
- Grade 4: make predictions, use data to recognize patterns, compare structure and behaviour of plants and animals
- Grade 5: experimentation, natural resources
- Grade 6: experimentation, kingdoms of life, microscopic life, adaptations
- Grade 7: create models to explain scientific concepts, ecosystems
Suggested Resources
Many of our Educator Resources can support your visit. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Pre-Visit Resources
- A Skeleton Story by Numbers
- Textures and Rubbings
Scavenger Hunts and Museum Activities
We suggest using a scavenger hunt before or after your program to help students explore the museum in a guided way.
- Creature Features
- Forest Biodiversity
- Oceans Biodiversity
- Urban BiodiverseCity
- Wetland Biodiversity
Post-Visit Resources
- An Invertebrate’s School Life
- Creating a Nature Table
- Entomology Collage
- Marine Invertebrate Classification
- Nature Guides and Logs
- Nature Journal Blank Sheets
- Nature Journal Observation Pages
- Pressing Plants
- Using a Nature Journal Year Round
Please visit our Educator Resources page to download these materials.