The average human being sleeps a total of 24 years of a lifetime! That's a lot of nap time! “Dreamtime Rendezvous” is a wonderful song that can be used especially at nap time in your classroom.
Materials
1. The song “Dreamtime Rendezvous” from Red Grammer's recording, Down the Do Re Mi
2. The following books for classroom reading and class discussion:
Animals Asleep by Sneed B. Collard (2004 Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston)
Sleepy Book by Charlotte Zolotow (1986 Harper Collins)
Animals Don't Wear Pajamas by Eve B. Feldman (1992 Henry Holt & Co., New York)
Animals At Night by Sharon Peters (1983 Troll Assoc.)
A Time For Sleeping by Ron Hirschi (1993 Cobble Hill Books, New York)
3. Plain paper for children to draw on
4. CD player
5. On the last day of this lesson students can bring in their favorite animal to sleep with.
Objectives
1. A student can state that people and animals need to rest in order to stay healthy
2. A student will become aware that animals sleep in different positions and in different locations (i.e. dens, caves, rocks, water, and trees)
3. Students can demonstrate by acting out or drawing the way animal(s) may sleep that has been mentioned in the lesson
Lesson
1. Play the song “Dreamtime Rendezvous.”
2. Discuss how the family was sleeping all in a row, how we sleep in rows in our classroom and other times we might sleep in groups or in a row (firefighters at the fire house; sleeping with your family in a tent).
3. Discuss how we sleep in our pajamas and in our beds or on a couch.
4. Read Animals Sleep to show how animals also need sleep and that sometimes some animals can sleep in unusual ways.
5. Play “Dreamtime Rendezvous” while students are napping.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 on different days and on step 4 choose a different book each day that is mentioned in materials of this lesson.
7. Have students act out or demonstrate the way some of the animals they learned about sleep.
8. Have students either draw themselves sleeping with one of the animals or color a picture of one of the animals that was mentioned during the lesson. The attached pictures may be used.
9. Conclude the lesson by having the students come together with their stuffed animals that they brought to school and have them sing “Dreamtime Rendezvous” while “napping” with their stuffed animal.
List of animals that sleep in unusual ways:
1. A horse sleeps standing up
2. An orangutan likes to weave a nest of branches in the trees for a nice nap
3. Mother pandas often curl up to nap with their babies
4. Otters like to wrap themselves up in seaweed - the kelp keeps sea otters anchored in place while they are sleeping
5. Bird experts believe that sooty terns sleep or doze in midair as they slowly flap their wings
6. Butterflies often gather together at night to roost
7. Dogs seem to sleep in almost any position you can think of
8. Bats sleep upside down
9. A parrotfish surrounds itself with a mucus “sleeping bag” before going to sleep
10. A bottlenose dolphin can put half of its brain to sleep at a time - while half of the brain rests, the other half lets the dolphin slowly swim
11. Seals sleep with their flippers flat against blocks of ice
12. The snowy crane sleeps standing up on one long leg
13. Turtles sleep inside their shell
14. Caterpillars sleep in their silky cacoons
15. Spiders when they sleep are like small ink spots in the middle of their web
16. Opossums sleep upside down from the branch of a tree
17. Owls sleep during the day
