How to Teach Kindergartners About Snakes

Video Transcript

"Any topic or idea can be taught to young children through a repeated exposure. For example, if you'd like to teach the children about snakes, you'll want to use a variety of instructional tools to teach the children. This means checking with your local librarian about numerous books that might teach about snakes, also having hands on props so that the children can explore. This can include rubber snakes or pretend snakes. Try to keep them as life like as possible so you are able to show the children what you've been learning in the stories. Also, if you're not able to bring a live snake into the classroom, you may want to check around with friends or family members to see if anyone has snake skins or snake eggs, or anything that you could show the children, that is directly related to your topic. Another great th...tool that you can use when teaching children about a new idea or topic is a chart called a KWL chart. We use these in my classroom often. You can see the chart here. The K stands for what we already know. The W stands for what we'd like to know, and thee L at thee end stands for what we have learned. So begin by first asking the children everything that they already know about snakes, and then once you write down all of their ideas in the K column. When you're done, move onto the W column. Ask the children what would you like to know about snakes? What questions do you have that we should answer before we're done? Be sure to include all of their questions. You'll want to then turn to your instructional teaching, so take out your story books or whatever tools you're going to use to instruct the children on snakes. When you're done, ask the children "well, tell me what you learned today that you didn't know before about snakes." Write all of their responses in the L column. You'll want to then go back and check in your W column. See if there are any questions that the children had about snakes that weren't answered through your research and your instruction. Take the time sometime then to gather that information so that you can answer all of their questions. Another idea that would be wonderful to sum up your instructional time on snakes is to have the children take all of the new information that hey have learned and to create a class research project. Have them work together to create a classroom book that teaches about snakes that it could be shared with others."