Today, I have some engaging bat activities for kindergarten. Find some other fun kindergarten crafts on my kindergarten homeschool curriculum page.
October is the perfect time of year to swoop into a mini unit on bats. These adorable and often misunderstood creatures are a great way to introduce concepts like echolocation and nocturnal.
I have a few do it yourself ideas and a fun sensory bin bat activities for kindergarten. This sensory bin is so easy and inexpensive you can make it with just items in your pantry.
The benefits of sensory bins are many for preschoolers and kindergarten aged children.
They can explore and build their imaginations.
Also, they are good for self regulation, promote fine motor skills, and simple life skills.
That is all before adding in some extra educational activities.
Bat Unit Study Resources
First, include a few of these books to begin your study.
Nature Anatomy is a great living science book that has so many applications.
There is a beautiful two page spread on bats that is perfect to go along with the sensory bin.
You can also go with Bats by Gail Gibbons if you want something to reference during your play and learning in the sensory bin.
I also found this fantastic bat skeleton at Dollar Tree.
I wasn’t sure at first because of the scary teeth but realized that it offered a great learning opportunity to talk to your child about the myths surrounding bats.
And the fact that while yes there are vampire bats, the majority of bats are peaceful bug and fruit eating creatures.
If you look at the plastic skeleton you will see that anatomically it is pretty close to a real bat skeleton.
You can use it as a tool to label the different parts of a bat and talk about how they use their ears for echolocation.
Share a fact about what is echolocation. Bats emit high frequency sound through their mouth or nose and listen for the echo.
From the echo, the bat can determine the size, shape and texture of objects in its environment.
Too, add in my free Bat Unit Study.
Learning About Bat Activities
Too, once you create your sensory bin for kindergarten, add some other ideas for learning.
- Add letter tiles to work on beginning sounds or even spelling out simple words like bat, night, wing, or fly.
- Hide the letter tiles in the rice and have your little bat swoop in and grab one then tell you the name of and sound that the letter makes.
- Roll a die and have your child count out the appropriate number of bats to match the number.
Let your child play and develop their imagination in the sensory bin while you read aloud from Stellaluna.
Busy hands mean the brain is free to take in and hold onto information.
- Add spoons and cups for scooping, measuring, pouring, and investigating the sensory bin.
- Talk about the fact that bats hang upside down rather than resting on top of the branch the way birds do. Demonstrate with the pasta bats and sticks in the sensory bin. Introduce the concept of nocturnal animals if your child is not already familiar with it.
- Bats are most active from dusk to dawn. Make your bin a deep purple that makes it look like dusk, just after the sun sets but before it is completely dark, the time that many bats begin to feed. This is a great way to open up the topic for conversation. They are sure to remember these things taught during play.
And add pincers or tongs for picking up the bats to build fine motor skills.
How to Make a Bat Sensory Bin
Now, look how to make an easy bat sensory bin from things you already have in your home.
Here is a list.
- Food coloring or liquid watercolors
- Uncooked white rice
- farfalle(bowtie) pasta
- White beans
- Sticks from the yard.
- And a container or bin
First, I had liquid watercolor on hand so I used that to color my rice and pasta but you could also use food coloring or watered down craft paint as well.
Place your rice in a large bowl or ziploc bag and add coloring. Shake and knead the bag or stir until it is completely covered.
Next take a small handful of bowtie pasta and toss in a bag with black and/or brown coloring until coated well.
If you do brown, black, and even gray it gives you the opportunity to talk about the different colors of bats.
You could also just use black beans if you have them on hand for your night sky.
Spread rice and pasta out on a baking sheet in the sun to dry. The liquid watercolors dried up in less than 20 minutes.
Once your materials are dry, add the rice to a large baking dish or other shallow container to create a dusk colored sky.
Next, add some sticks gathered from the yard to give your bats somewhere to fly around and hang from.
Sprinkle a few great northern beans (or beads or pom poms) for stars.
Finally, add your bats.
Finally, add these other science fun activities.
