Animal Homes: Beaver Lodge

As part of our Habitats & Homes theme from Experience Early Learning, our daily topic was Lodges & Dens. We’ve learned about other animal homes, like nests, webs, and holes but a beaver lodge is really different. First of all, we don’t see beavers very often. Also, their homes are on the water. Especially when introducing animals we don’t see in our area much, I like to show the group a video so they can get an up-close look and really get a feel for what we’re talking about. Here’s one we watched: How Beavers Build Dams video

Animal Homes: Beaver Lodge

After learning what a beaver looks like and seeing what beavers do, we used art materials in an intentional way to create a project.  Using woodchips or small craft sticks, we explored the look, feel and smell of wood. What can we build with them?

Beavers use wood to build their lodges in ponds and rivers. They swim under the water to enter the lodge. Beavers use wood to build their lodges in ponds and rivers. They swim under the water to enter the lodge.

In the beginning, moving the woodchips around the paper and imagining it’s a river, helped us to decide where a beaver might want to put the wood. Then we glued the sticks on the paper. As you can see, each child did theirs differently, which of course is highly encouraged. Some used crayons as well to make their scenes.

I helped decorate the wooden spoons to look like beavers. After playing with them, the kids glued them on the page. They all turned out amazing!