Hibernation Migration Adaptation Worksheets

About this resource

What do animals do in winter? Some sleep, some travel, and some stay and keep going. This is a complete kit for one science idea: hibernation, migration and adaptation. Nine short reading passages (a bat, a groundhog, a bear, a goose, a monarch butterfly, a humpback whale, a fox, a rabbit and a chickadee) each name ONE winter plan, and every page after that asks about something the child was just given to read. It comes with a tracker, a class grid and a family page, so nothing has to be written from scratch.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (34 pages)

• 19 student pages in 8 page types: Meet the Winter Plans, Read About (nine pages), True or False, Who Am I, Winter Plan, Fill It In (two pages), Cut and Paste (three pages) and Write About Winter
• 9 reading passages of 5 short sentences each (45 sentences, none longer than 13 words), with words to know
• 90 scored items on 17 pages, every answer read from the passages, never typed by hand
• 26 true-or-false items: 2 on each reading page and 8 on the True or False page
• 7 "Who Am I" clues, each to match to an animal from a box of nine names (two are decoys that fit no clue)
• 9 winter-plan choices: circle hibernate, migrate or stay and adapt for each animal
• 12 fill-in blanks from word boxes of nine words, three of them spare
• 36 cut-and-paste pieces on 3 sort mats of 12 pieces: by winter plan; goose, monarch or whale; fox, rabbit or chickadee
• 2 answer keys
• 1 tracker (page, page type, items right, date) and 1 whole-class progress grid
• 1 team note (a hand-off page between team meetings) and 1 home page
• 1 filled example (an invented student), 1 phrase bank (16 observable-language starters), 1 binder cover and 6 divider tabs with a spine label to cut out
• Start Here and a how-to-read-a-page page

The Page Types, Easiest First

1. Meet the Winter Plans (1 dot): three cards (hibernate, migrate, stay and adapt) with the nine animals; four words to know; three lines to write a favorite.

2. Winter Plan, 1 page (1 dot): nine animals. Circle hibernate, migrate or stay and adapt for each.

3. True or False, 1 page (1 dot): eight statements about animals from all nine passages.

4. Read About, 9 pages (2 dots): a passage of five short sentences, the words to know, two statements to circle true or false, and two lines to write one more thing learned.

5. Who Am I, 1 page (2 dots): seven clues. Write the animal from a box of nine names (two are not answers).

6. Fill It In, 2 pages (2 or 3 dots): Set A finishes six sentences; Set B finishes six winter facts, each from a box of nine words (three are not used).

7. Cut and Paste, 3 pages (1, 2 or 3 dots): a block of 12 pieces that touch edge to edge, so cutting is a few straight lines. Paste 1 sorts by winter plan; Paste 2 sorts goose, monarch and whale facts; Paste 3 sorts fox, rabbit and chickadee facts.

8. Write About Winter, 1 page (3 dots): pick an animal, finish four sentences, draw it in a big box.

One Winter Plan At A Time

Real animals can do more than one thing. Each passage here names one winter plan, and every item asks only about that plan, so there is a single right answer on every page. A hibernation passage never mentions migrating, and a migration passage never mentions hibernating. The words in the boxes that are not answers appear in no passage, so a child has to read to choose.

Built For The Child Holding The Page

A big "My name" line, one short instruction, large rounded type, big answer boxes, and dots (not words or colors) to show which level a page is. Nothing on a student page is written for an adult. There are no numbers, sizes or speeds in the passages: only what the animal does and where it goes. The file prints clean in black and white.

No Guessing The Answer

Wherever a child picks among printed choices (true or false, the winter plan, where a word sits in the box, the order of the pieces on the cut strip), the position of the right answer is checked so it does not sit in the same spot three times in a row.

Type In, Or Print

The name line and every answer box are type-in fields in any PDF reader: click one, type, then save. The same goes for the tracker, the class grid, the team note and the home page. This is a fillable PDF; it is not a Google Slides or PowerPoint file.

Who This Is For

Elementary classrooms, self-contained and resource rooms, and any teacher building a winter or life-science unit into a center, a small group or a morning work folder. The sentences are short, and the teacher can read each page aloud.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

A hibernation, migration and adaptation worksheet set with the record-keeping around it. It is not a timed test, a screener, a clinical tool, or a claim about any student's age or rate of progress. There is no IEP goal language or eligibility wording anywhere in the file.