YIKES! Lesson Plan

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Academic Standards

 

Reading Objective:

Children will learn about a scorpion’s creepy but useful adaptation that helps it get the food it needs to survive.

 

Reading Level: 

Lexile: 520L; GRL: J

 

Next Generation Science Standards:

2-LS4 Interdependent relationships in ecosystems

 

 

Vocabulary:

adaptations, venom

Use these questions to check students’ understanding and stimulate discussion:

 

1. What is an adaptation? (a special body part that can help an animal get food and survive)

2. What is the scorpion’s stinger filled with? (venom)

3. Why doesn’t the scorpion eat the cricket right away? (The cricket is too big for the scorpion’s tiny mouth.)

4. How can scorpion venom help us? (It can be used to make medicine.)

 

Go online to print or project the Reading Checkpoint.

 

  • Scorpions are not insects. They are arachnids. Spiders and ticks are arachnids too.
  • Scorpions give birth to live babies. Scorpion moms carry their babies on their backs.
  • The world has more than 2,500 types of scorpions. Only 25 of those have venom that can kill people.

Materials: pencils, copies of the skill sheet

(optional: scrap cardboard, plastic bottles, string, other assorted craft supplies)

Overview: Children will use pencil and paper to design a trap for insects. If you have time and materials, they can build their traps!

Directions:

  • Remind students that a scorpion captures insects with its stinger. Other creatures have different adaptations. Frogs use their sticky tongues. The Venus flytrap has leaves that snap shut. Challenge kids to design their own insect catcher. Tell them this is an engineering challenge. Engineers design things to solve problems. Help them think like engineers with these questions:
    • What insect do they want to trap? Does the insect crawl or fly?
    • How big would the trap have to be to hold this insect?
    • Would you hang the trap from a tree or place it on the ground? 
  • Have children use the skill sheet to draw and label their design. If you have time and materials, they can build it!