Kindergarten Camouflage Activities
Kindergarten children learn all about the concept of camouflage in science class. It is important that children understand that camouflage is the blending of an animal, human or object with its surroundings. Some animals are born with the same colors as those found in their habitats, and others change colors to suit the habitat they enter. Hands-on activities will aid kindergarten children in mastering the camouflage concept.
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Toothpicks and Paper Clips
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Gather together a box of colored toothpicks and a container of colored paper clips. If you don't have both, use one or the other. Toss the toothpicks and paper clips in the grass. Give students a chance to collect as many of the toothpicks and paper clips as they can find. Ask the students which colors were the easiest to spot and which color was the hardest. The children should say that green was the hardest because it matched the color of the grass. Repeat this activity in a pile of dirt and again on a colored rug. Each time the children should note that the toothpick or paper clip that matched the color of the background was the hardest to find because it blended in.
Which Animals Camouflage Best
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Cut 20 to 30 pictures of different animals out of old magazines and newspapers. Have them laminated if you want to reuse them year after year. Mix the animals up and hand one out to each student. Designate the left side of the classroom for animals that do not camouflage well with their surroundings and the right side for animals that do. Instruct the students to stand up and move to the left or right side of the classroom based on the picture of the animal they are holding. A child with a hot pink flamingo, for example will move to the left side of the room because there would be no hot pink backgrounds for it to hide in. A child with a polar bear picture would move to the right side of the room because polar bears match the snow in the arctic where they live.
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Stencil Match-Up
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Collect 15 to 20 different wall stencils. The stencils do not have to be just of animals. Give each student a stencil. Instruct them to find something in the room where that stencil would easily be camouflaged. For example, a stencil of a dolphin could be held up against a blue or gray painted wall because most dolphins are either blue or gray. A leaf stencil could be help up against a brown teacher's desk or a green t-shirt because leaves are green in the summer and brown in the fall. Repeat until each stencil has been successfully camouflaged.
Camouflage Yourself
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Put together a big pile of dress-up clothes. Gather a bunch of background pictures. These pictures may be of a forest, ocean, snowy mountain, yellow painted bedroom or a red bouncy machine. Anything goes. Instruct the students to come up one at a time. Show each student a different background picture and give them three minutes to use the dress-up clothes to show how they would camouflage themselves in that background. For example, a child who got the snowy mountain picture would look for white clothing and a child who got the yellow painted bedroom picture would search for yellow clothing. Repeat until you have gone through all of the background pictures.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit frog camouflage image by gajatz from Fotolia.com
