The lesson on this page entitled “Animal Body Parts” (download the .doc file) is one of my absolute favorites. There is a list of different body parts from animals, and the students have to think of an animal that has such a part. I’ve probably done this lesson with every class I’ve ever taugh that is old enough and can read. You can even do it with non-readers, since there are pictures and students can point and speak. It’s just an awesome, awesome lesson to use.
Today, having tapped the well of lessons I had made for that activity one too many times, I needed to come up with something different. The students were doing comparitive anatomy, comparing different sea creatures body features. Starfish have arms, but crabs have legs. That sort of thing. I pulled out my old standby lesson plan and made the students review the different body parts. Then I handed out a new paper I had prepared for the occasion.
I had made this paper before class. The premise of the paper was to build a new animal from the different parts of the animals on the page. By mixing and matching the different animal parts, you could come up with some crazy different animals.
I’m a fan H.P. Lovecraft’s tone, and anything with madness causing Cthulhu is a bonus. I decided that the students were going to need an example of a chimera animal to draw. Looking at some D&D Mindflayers, I got a picture down on paper that was terrifying, but still fine to show the children. I added some claws and shells, and a few other animal parts.
After the students drew their animal, they had to write a paragraph about what their new animal could do. They had to talk about what it could do, the parts it had, and what it ate. The students all went off in radically different directions with thier chimeras. Some drew pokemon like creatures, while others made silly things. It was a lot of fun.
It was inspired by an episode of Radiolab where they talked about a post-genetics singularity where everyone can manipulate DNA and create pets with a mix of various species. My students showed an interest that the children in that episode showed for funny animals that are a mash up of different creatures.
