What Will We Love About Animals?

Everyone Will Be Captivated by Key Resources
Animals and Their Worlds has magnificent resources that truly captivate students. Pictures in the Animal Encyclopedia are breath-taking, allowing you to go up-close and inside the lives of mammals, birds, insects and more. Meanwhile the “One Small Square” series engrosses students (and parents!) as they discover everything that is going on in a small square of the environment — on the ground, among the plant life — even underground and in the tops of trees! You’ll also love how the notebooking gets kids out into nature and discovering it for themselves!

It Offers Such Great Nature Notebooking and Journaling Opportunities
Students create a full-color “Make-Your-Own” Animal Notebook that has weekly opportunities to write or draw about a highlighted animal. Full-color pages are fun and motivate students to do their best work. Younger students can draw their responses, while older students can write and do guided research with a parent, adding more information or pictures if they’d like to expand their notebook. Meanwhile, older students also complete nature journaling with the “Habitats, Hollows & Homes” Journal, filling out illustrated pages with observations about the environment, weather, habitats, etc. NOTE: Because of the cost of printing the journals, you may want to add print copies of “Habitats …” or “Burrows …” to an ebook package purchase.

You Can Add the Nature Investigation Kit!
This kit gives young learners the hard-to-find supplies they need to track down all sorts of findings in the great outdoors. Includes tools like a magnifying glass, owl pellet kit and much more. #NA-KIT

There’s a Set to Fit Your Family
The Pre-K/K Set offers young learners their own journaling in the new “Burrows, Beehives and Beds” resource, along with targeted learning activities for young students. Each week the same letter is reinforced that is introduced in the coordinating language arts program, “Letters to Little Words.” Older students will go more in-depth with their resources, and complete the giant journaling resource “Habitats, Hollows and Homes.” If you’ve got both ages, you can order the combined program!

What Will We Study?

You’ll study both science and social studies!  Here’s a sampling of the topics your student will encounter this year!

Wandering in the Woods

• Types of Forests
• Why Leaves Fall During the Autumn
• How a Tree Lives, Grows, and Reproduces Itself
• The Age of Trees
• Types of Leaves
• Jobs Trees Do
• Trees Provide Homes & Shelter
• Layers in the Forest
• Featured Animals:  Porcupines, Deer, Bears, Squirrels, Beavers, Owls

Walking in Wetlands

• What Makes a Wetland Unique?
• What to Look for in a Wetland
• Why Are Wetlands Important?
• Everyday Creatures You See in Wetlands
• Mucking About in a Bog
• Estuaries & Mangrove Forests
• What You’d Manage to See in a Marsh
• Slosh in Streams and Rivers
• Lakes, Ponds & Vernal Ponds?
• Stepping Into Swamps
• Featured Animals:  Tigers, Alligators, Salmon, Flamingoes, Moose, Ducks

Safari on the Savannah

• Grassland Habitats
• What It Takes to Keep a Grassland Grassy!
• All About Grasses & Grazing
• Scavengers on the Savannah
• Savannah Climate and Rainfall
• Eating on the Savannah
• Wildfire!
• Predators and Prey
• Featured Animals:  Giraffes, Lions, Cheetahs, Zebras, Elephants

Poking About in Polar Places

• Wondering About Winter?
• Winter, Polar, or Arctic?
• All About Snow, Snowpack, and Glaciers
• Surviving the Cold
• The Tilt of the Sun in the Arctic
• Sleeping Through the Winter
• Migrating Away from Winter
• Making a Living in the Winter
• Another Survival Technique – Turning White
• Things to Observe in Evergreens
• Tracks in the Snow
• Tree Shapes in Winter
• Featured Animals:  Penguins, Wolves, Seals, Sea Lions, Polar Bears, Whales

Enduring the Heat of a Cactus Desert

• What is a Desert?
• Three Basic Cloud Types
• Features in a Desert
• All About a Cactus & the Saguaro
• Desert Temperatures
• Water in a Desert
• Desert Plants & Their Survival Strategies
• Desert Predators & Prey
• Featured Animals:  Chameleons, Komodo Dragons, Snakes, Hummingbirds

Foraging in the Rainforest

• What is a Rainforest?
• Four Layers in a Rainforest
• How Big are Trees in the Rainforest?
• A Common Rainforest Resident – the Butterfly
• Identifying Butterfly Species
• Rainforest Products
• Multi-Talented Root Systems of Rainforest Trees!
• Featured Animals:  Frogs, Gorillas, Chimpanzees, Toucans, Leopards

Cruising Coral Reefs & Seashores

• Seashores & Coral Reefs & How They are Formed
• Zones Along a Beach
• Beach Residents:  Gulls and Terns
• Seashells
• Crabs & Other Creatures
• Explore Seaside Dunes
• Explore Estuaries
• Sand and Its Constant Motion
• Featured Animals:  Dolphins, Fish, Sharks, Seahorses, Australian Creatures, Creatures of the Great Barrier Reef

What’s in the Animals Guide?

Your Animals guide should quickly feel like an old friend.  It is designed to be easy to follow, with each week’s assignments laid out on just one page!  The introduction to the guide offers you oodles of teaching helps that may feel like Charlotte Mason just “friended” you — like advice she’d give you on how to grade student work!  It’s all here!

• A 36-week, 4-day schedule is laid out clearly in a grid-style on just one page
• Introductory material helps you mentor and “learn together” with your student
• Supply lists and other helps make planning quick and painless
• Narration ideas in the front of the guide help you prompt your student through the year
• Weekly schedule page reduces your paperwork and is easy to follow, with clear notes
• Resources offer a focus on activities that are “Open & Go!”
• Ratings systems for activities help you find the ones you want!
• Independent study schedules for older students eliminate writing out homework lists
• Website and DVD suggestions take your family into ecologies and habitats
• Above all, WP offers a practical, “Can-Do-and-Want-To-Do!” approach

What Materials are Included?

This program is designed for students from Pre-K to 4th Grade.  There are resources that are common to both sets, and some that are designed for younger or older students.  Your family can choose to do one set or another, or use a combined set for a range of ages!  Find out more below on the “Materials” tab.  Older students will enjoy the detailed illustrations in the “One Small Square” series, and will very much enjoy the opportunity to learn about the “World of Animals.”  Their nature journaling resource, “Habitats, Hollows & Homes” offers a year’s worth of nature observations that challenge students in grades 1 to 4.  Meanwhile, students in Pre-K or Kindergarten are provided with an easier version of the nature journaling called “Burrows, Beehives & Beds,” which also includes some fun alphabet and fine motor skill work perfect for their skill level.  Additional resources support the phonics learning they are likely doing in language arts.

WinterPromise Exclusives You’ll Love

• Animals Combined Guide
• “Make-Your-Own” Animal Book
• “Habitats, Hollows & Homes Journal” or “Burrows, Beehives & Beds”
• Animal Height Chart

PLUS — Optional Additional Page Packs for Your Student Journal

• Deep Into Habitats Pack
• Diorama Pack
• Alphabet Fun Pack

Shared Resources for Both Age Groups

• One Small Square:  Woods
• One Small Square:  Swamp
• One Small Square:  African Savannah
• One Small Square:  Arctic Tundra
• One Small Square:  Cactus Desert
• One Small Square:  Tropical Rainforest
• One Small Square:  Coral Reef
• DK Animal Encyclopedia

Resources for 1st to 4th Grade

• The World of Animals
• Glow-in-the Dark Fish

Resources for Pre-K to Kindergarten

• Alphabet Art
• At the Zoo!  Explore the Animal World with Craft Fun
• Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book of Animals
• Big Book of Five-Minute Devotions

Bonus Resource if You Purchase an Ebook or Mixed Exclusives Bundle

• Burgess Book of Animals

Can I ‘Go Inside’ Key Resources?

Start by Looking at the 200+ Page Student Journal:
“Habitats, Hollows & Homes” OR “Burrows, Beehives & Beds”

WinterPromise’s habitat journals add a lot of content to the Animals program.  Each of your students can build their own Animals Journal in print, starting with the huge and interactive basic notebooks in two versions for older or younger students.  The “Habitats, Hollows, and Homes” journal is designed for students in 1st to 4th grade, while “Burrows, Beehives, and Beds” is perfect for younger students. The pages in “Habitats, Hollows, and Homes” allow students to record experiment outcomes, discover unique facts about each habitat, study unusual animals, and more!

You can add your choice of page packs to your student journal, the “Deep Into Habitats Pack,” “Diorama Pack,” or the “Alphabet Fun Pack.”  Students can really customize it to make it their own!

What Signature WP Experiences Await Us?

WinterPromise considers itself a curriculum that embraces the “Experience Approach,” offering Charlotte-Mason style learning opportunities with up-to-date materials that make the most of technology, too.  In each WP program, you’ll encounter a lot of our signature “Experiences.” Some of them come in key resources like our exclusive “Habitats, Hollows, and Homes” resource, while others are in the guide or hidden in other resources.

Here are just a sampling of the experiences your student can choose to make a part of their year:

• Find Your Own “One Small Square” in Nature
• Take a Tree Walk or Seashore Walk
• Discover What’s Inside Acorns & Why it Matters!
• Identify Custom-Designed Tails, Fins, or Beaks
• Observe Layers in Forests and Rainforests
• Try Out Giraffe Legs or a Giraffe Tongue!
• Observe African Wildlife at a Watering Hole
• Uncover Animal Camouflage Strategies
• Consider How Animals Keep Themselves Clean
• Discover the Seven Zones on a Beach
• Take a Look at Multi-Talented Rainforest Root Systems
• Match Sharks to the Tails That Fit Their Lifestyle
• AND Much More!

How Do I Use Ebook Versions?

While many of our families do enjoy books, most of our ebooks would better be considered resources, rather than the types of books that families typically desire to enjoy as “books.” With all this in mind, not only might our ebooks sets be right for your family, you might just discover that they really offer you a better way to do school! And remember – most of our programs include bonus ebook resources you can’t get any other way!  Take a look at the ways you could utilize our ebook resources:

• Consumable materials can be printed out looseleaf, and you are able to print as many copies as you want!
• Some resources are designed to function as easily flippable “Tablet Books” that look great on a tablet screen, and are in beautiful full color. They are easy to cuddle around, just like books. NOTE! These books function on any device, not just a tablet!
• Some resources just offer more functionality, as they jump you to websites and more!
• Ebook resources are most often in full color, and look unbelievable on your device!
• Almost all resources allow you to customize your experience, whether filling in assignments or printing just the right number.

Take a look at the “Animals” resources below. Discover how they function as ebooks, and the advantages to making them a part of your library, and then decide!

The Animal Worlds Guide in Ebook Format
This guide brings you a wealth of functionality not present in a print guide. Take a look:

• Recommended websites link directly to the web on devices that have web access
• Separate “Independent Study Schedules” files allow you to actually add some student assignments in the grid format!
• Guide pages are viewable in full color
• You can customize your experience: select and print any pages you’d like from the guide and view others
• Easily print extra “Independent Study Schedules” for additional students

“Habitats, Hollows, and Homes” or “Burrows, Beehives & Beds” Journals
These resources are easy to print looseleaf, and can be printed as many times as you like for multiple students, offering you a great savings. By having access to either or both of these files, you can customize and print only those pages you’ll use, which is especially handy if you have younger students, or student who would rather focus on other aspects of the program. Either way, your students are using it the same way in print or ebook. This is a resource that is in color in ebook, but it does not need not to be printed in color.   You can choose to print only select pages in color, if you like.

Animal Height Chart
This chart is in full color, designed to be printed and hung on your wall.  Small squares that measure animal heights are prepared for you to print and glue onto the chart, along with other animals your student would like to add.  Having an ebook copy means you can print another copy later should you decide to repeat the program or even allow students to complete their own chart.  Print 19 color pages.

What Items are Related to Animals?

Below you’ll find information on products related to Animals, including the consumables in the program, language arts programs you might want to consider, and what else to add to complete the learning.

Start by Deciding if You Need Extra of These Consumables in Print:

• Habitats, Hollows & Homes
• Burrows, Beehives & Beds
• “Make-Your-Own” Animal Book
• Deep Into Habitats Pack
• Diorama Pack
• Animal Alphabet Fun Pack

Next, Consider if You Want to Purchase a Coordinating Language Arts Program:
Coordinating language arts programs offer scheduled readers that coordinate with this theme and typically offer creative writing or narration suggestions that coordinate with this theme as well.  This theme coordinates with:

• Pre-K/K Letters to Little Words
• K/Adv K Syllables to Sentences
• Adv K/1st Grade Paragraphs to Pages
• 1st/2nd Grade Stories to Short Chapters
• 2nd/3rd Grade Readers to Real Books
• LA 3
• LA 4

Add a Math Program, too!

And Consider the Optional Nature Investigation Kit – NA-KIT – $59
This Nature Investigation Kit will help you encounter habitats in “Animals and Their Worlds.”  It outfits students with hard-to-find tools and resources to help them complete many nature and science activities and help them continue to explore the natural world long after their study is complete.  This kit will also help you complete “Adventures in the Sea & Sky.”  It includes:

• A large top quality magnifying glass
• A pair of binoculars
• A large, clear 4″ high lidded jar for collecting liquids or specimens
• A tape measure for recording specimen size
• An indoor/outdoor thermometer for weather observation
• Red tissue paper
• A 3″ by 4″ rounded corner mirror for safe experimentation
• A jumbo-size real owl pellet to dissect
• Various other small supplies

And, If You Want Adventure Reading to Coordinate with Animals . . .
WinterPromise has always included family reading with their themed programs, but as we’ve watched prices on these books go up, we feel it is better to offer parents the option to choose whether or not to purchase these books as part of their program. This way parents have the choice to collect new or used books, borrow them, or take advantage of the advent of personal reading devices and use ebooks on their devices. To give parents more choices, we are no longer including reading books in our themed programs, but listed below is detail about the adventure reading books scheduled for you in your guide.  You can still purchase this set from WP as a special order item online.

• Ereth’s Birthday
• Lost in the Woods
• Christopher Mouse
• Huggins
• Mr. Popper’s Penguins
• Look to the North
• One Day in the Desert
• Coyote Autumn
• The Tarantula in My Purse
• Flute’s Journey
• One Day in the Tropical Rainforest

Decide whether to order the Pre-K/K Set, the 1st to 4th Set, or the Combined Set for a Range of Ages.  Then, continue on to our store to order your set, following the steps one by one!

Animal FAQ’s

My student knows so much about animals already — can he or she really learn from this?
From a comprehensive look at habitats to studying animal classification and behavioral patterns, this program is chock full of information, especially in the older student’s package.  Even if your student is an “animal buff,”  they’ll systematically learn information about the animal kingdom that will put a lot of things together for them  and introduce them to entirely new concepts about animals and the “worlds” they inhabit.  Many is the time that  a parent calls us with concerns that their child already eats up information about animals and loves Discovery  Channel, then later lets us know that their student has learned so much from this program and has loved it  every step of the way.

What is the difference between “Habitats, Hollows & Homes,” and “Burrows, Beehives & Beds”?
These two resources are both ecological journaling, and so they are used in the same way, but each has been  developed for a different age group. They share some activities, so that you can complete them as a family.  Other activities are virtually the same, but the goals or questions are simpler for younger students.  Still others  are entirely different, with older students completing much more difficult experiments or observations, and  younger students focusing on easier tasks. “Burrows, Beehives and Beds” does offer some phonics reinforcement activities that combine animal or habitat observation with phonics skills that reinforce what they know.  These activities are not for non-readers only, but are also meant to reinforce what young readers are learning in a new and fresh way.

I’m torn between which package to get for my first grader — younger or older?
We have provided quite a few learning tools in the younger package to reinforce the phonics and alphabetical  order use that is key to the further development of a new reader.  Even if a student knows their alphabet and  sounds, this program can be useful in developing faster sight recognition, sound recognition and skill with the alphabet.  We really want to stress that these activities are helpful even for children who know their alphabet and are starting to read.  However, some parents choose to use the older package with a first grader who is already well-developed in these areas. There may be a couple of resources in the older package that are a little advanced for a first grader, but you’ll be able to use the older program, especially if you’ve got an “animal expert” on your hands!

I’ve got both a younger and older student; how can I combine them?
We offer an Animals Combined Set that includes one set of the shared resources, one set of young learner resources, and one set of 1st to 4th grade resources.  The Animals Combined Guide schedules both sets of resources.  The older set of resources includes “Habitats, Hollows & Homes,” “The World of Animals” (with various assignments, projects and activities in that), and “Glow in the Dark Fish.”  “The World of Animals” has a variety of assignments with each lesson, so it is quite a varied schedule.  The younger set of resources includes “Burrows, Beehives, and Beds,” “Alphabet Art” (another resource with a variety of assignments), “At the Zoo! Craft Fun,” “Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book,” and the “Big Book of Five-Minute Devotions.”  Parents need to add the appropriate consumables according to how many extra students beyond just one student will be using them.  Take a look at the consumables listed at the top of this FAQ page.  We only include one of each of these in the Combined Set. You’ll definitely need a copy of AW-151 for each additional student,  plus the consumables from whichever age group is appropriate.

(UNDER CONSTRUCTION)