Grades 3-5

Cat Safety 

• Cat Behavior and Body Language Lesson
  • Students will understand the safety rules for interacting with cats. They will learn how to follow these rules responsibly through the ANIMAL acronym.
    • Core Standard: 21.3–5.HL.2
      • Essential Concept and/or Skill: Utilize interactive literacy and social skills to establish personal family, and community health goals.

Dog Safety

• Dog Body Language Lesson 
  • Students will learn that dogs communicate using their bodies. They will explore how dogs show different emotions such as happiness, stress, fear, frustration, nervousness, and relaxation.
    • Core Standard: 21.3–5.HL.2
      • Essential Concept and/or Skill: Utilize interactive literacy and social skills to establish personal family, and community health goals.

• Nervous Dog Bingo
  • Students will learn about body language cues from dogs signaling they are nervous, stressed, or anxious. They will play a bingo game to help them remember and learn to watch out for these signs.
    • Core Standard: 21.3–5.HL.2
      • Essential Concept and/or Skill: Utilize interactive literacy and social skills to establish personal family, and community health goals.

Pet Responsibility

• ASPCA Pet Care Reference SheetsThese care sheets are a great resource for students to learn about all of the responsibilities that come along with owning a pet. Care sheets include the following pets:
  • Dogs
  • Cats
  • Rats
  • Rabbits
  • Mice
  • Hamsters
  • Guinea Pigs
  • Birds (general)
    • Core Standard: 21.3–5.ES.3
      • Essential Concept and/or Skill: Practice leadership skills, and demonstrate integrity, ethical behavior, and social responsibility in all activities.

• Five Freedoms Lesson
  • Students will learn about the 5 Freedoms that every animal is entitled to under human care.
    • The 5 freedoms are a set of internationally recognized animal welfare standards. They outline what responsible pet owners must provide. They are not just things we want to do for our animals, but also things we must do in order to keep our animals healthy and happy.
    • Core Standard: 21.3–5.ES.3
      • Essential Concept and/or Skill: Practice leadership skills, and demonstrate integrity, ethical behavior, and social responsibility in all activities.

• Pet Care Bingo
  • This game emphasizes the many considerations one needs to make before they bring a pet home. Using the ASPCA pet care guides, participants will search for the answers to pet care questions on the bingo sheets and learn about the care guidelines for several different pets.
    • Core Standard: 21.3–5.ES.3
      • Essential Concept and/or Skill: Practice leadership skills, and demonstrate integrity, ethical behavior, and social responsibility in all activities.

Pet Overpopulation (Spay/Neuter)

• OverPOMpulation Lesson 
  • Students will be able to define overpopulation, spaying, neutering, and euthanasia age-appropriately. Students will learn how pet over population occurs and understand spaying and neutering is one of the best ways to help prevent animal overpopulation.
  • Core Standard: 21.3–5.HL.3
    • Essential Concept and/or Skill: Demonstrate critical literacy/thinking skills related to personal, family, and community wellness.

Wildlife

• This is a great age to introduce "The 3 L's" when coming into contact with wild animals. Students can remember to simply "Look at them", Learn from them", and "Leave them alone". 

Use the form below to suggest a topic that you would like to see on this resource page. We will do our best to create lessons/activities for reasonable requests. Please allow at least 2 weeks for lesson/activity creation.