Snail Lesson Plans for Children

Snails are very interesting creatures. Many of your students may not know much about snails. Here are some great activities to incorporate into your lesson plans all about snails.

A great game to play is called bird attack. Explain to your students that one of the animals that eat snails is birds. Pick one person to be the bird. All of the rest of the students are the snails. The snails move around the playing field. When the bird flaps its wings, that means it about the attack. The snails must stop moving which resembles them going into their shells. If a snail is caught moving when they are suppose to be frozen then they are "eaten" and are out of the game. Play until there is only one snail left. That person is the winner and the new bird for the next game.

Tell your students that snails do not have good eyesight so they use their noses and sense of touch to find their food. They also can not hear. For this game fill small film canisters with different scents such as onion, vanilla, orange etc. Make four canisters of each scent. Then give each student a canister with a scent. Your students must then find the other three people that have their scent without talking. The first group to find all four people and sit in a group wins! To make this game harder you can also have your students close their eyes since snails do not have good eyesight.

Another great game is called stay out of my garden! Snails are often pests when it comes to having a garden. Pick one person to be the gardener. All of the rest of the students are snails. Lay out plants that are drawn and cut out of construction paper. These are the things in the garden. The snails must then try to take the plants without the gardener killing(tagging) them. They place the plants on the other side of the playing field. If they get tagged they are out of the game. Play until all of the snails have been killed or all of the plants have been taken.

By incorporating these activities into your unit on snails your students will have lots of fun. They will learn interesting facts about snails while playing games. So the next time you have a unit on snails or even just a day on snails try out some of these games. You will not be disappointed.

Sources:

http://www.geocities.com/sseagraves/allaboutsnails.htm