The Beavers Award is a great way to start a new year in Adventurers. All of your new little Eager Beavers will enjoy learning what beavers are. They are such fascinating creatures! While learning about these wonderful creatures God created, we can learn about working together as a family and a community. Did you know that many animals depend on beavers to give them a good place to live?
Story: Beavers Are Busy
Fulfills Requirements #1-6, 8
My library has a feast of book options about beavers. I checked them out many of them to take home to pre-read and pick the best one. You’ll find more book ideas at the end of this post.
I’ve seen Beavers Are Busy by Jennifer Gooch listed at AdventSource and have been curious about it. My reaction to this book is mixed. I was very disappointed when it arrived, and I excitedly pulled it out of the box.
It doesn’t have a “true cover”! The cover is the same material as the interior pages. It feels like a cheap magazine, not a book. I don’t feel the quality fits the price point. My Eager Beaver teacher had difficulty holding this book up in way that all the kids could see the pictures. (I’m guessing this is due to its flimsy nature.) That said, the material inside is excellent. The pages are filled with full color photographs. The book is filled with all sorts of details about beavers.
When I first starting planning this award, I was intimidated by the number of requirements. But, Beavers are Busy fulfills seven of them! If AdventSource upgrades their cover so the book can survive multiple years, I will enthusiastically recommend this book for your club’s resource library.
Craft: Beaver and Lodge or Dam
Fulfills Requirement #7
There are a variety of ways to create a beaver lodge/dam craft. Some of them involve chocolate! (Check the Leader’s Guide or my pinterest board.) I chose play dough – it’s always loved by the kids, it’s not food (food crafts are cute, but are a recipe for germ sharing at this age), and it doesn’t create a 3D creation the parents have to figure how to deal with in their already-cluttered homes.
I used my favorite play dough recipe in two shades of brown. (I omit the recommended essential oils and strongly suggest you skip those when making play dough for your club.) I added a pile of toothpicks and small rocks so they could make a beaver and it’s lodge. I think the teacher also had them working all together to build a large dam.
Play: Pretend Beavers
Fulfills Requirement #9
Sample Script
Did you know that baby beavers can swim after only a half hour after they are born?
Kits, or young beavers live with their mommy and daddy for several years after they are born. A beaver family will often have kits of multiple ages living together helping their parents take care of the lodge and all the beaver family’s needs.
We’re going to pretend to be little beavers! We’ll pretend that the tent and table is our lodge, the floor is water, and the tunnel end is under water. Little Beavers, you can swim around our lake home and look for logs and twigs to add to our lodge or to bring inside to eat. You can stand on the stumps when you want to look around the lake.
Mommy and Daddy Beavers will be watching for danger. What do beavers do when they see danger? That’s right they slap their tails! When you hear a beaver slap its tail (clapping their hands), you need to swim to safety!
Setup and Information
The main purpose of this activity is pretend play. If you use the above script, or just mention the part about baby beavers swimming, you will also fulfill requirement #9.
This activity partially came from the leader’s guide. They recommended a large box for a beaver’s den. I don’t have a giant box at the moment, so I used an Ikea play tent and tunnel I do have. Use what you have. If you don’t have a giant box or a play tent, how about a table? You could use a plain table and tell the kids to use their imagination. Eager Beavers are great at that! If you want to level up a little, toss a blanket over three sides of the table – leave one side open for an entrance and so you can easily supervise.
To add a little structure to our play, I created tree stumps, small logs, and twigs from paper and laminated them to increase their chance of survival (printable at the end of the post). You could also make logs from twisted packing paper and twigs from pipe cleaners. The stumps were for the little beavers to stand on, and the logs and twigs were for them to find and collect. I think the stumps got collected too! The parents clapped their hands to send the “baby beavers” swimming for safety whenever “danger” was imagined.
Although the kids did collect the logs and twigs, their teacher told me they enjoyed playing in the tent the most. This is totally fine and expected. If your “baby beavers” just want to play in their lodge, don’t stress about it. Again, the main purpose of this activity is pretend play.
Our beaver friend is a beaver puppet made by Folkmanis. The Eager Beavers love seeing her each week! You can find your own beaver buddy at AdventSource or Amazon.
Activity: Color Beaver Lodge
Fulfills Requirement #10: Draw or color a picture of what a beaver’s lodge looks like, if you slice
off one side of a typical beaver lodge.
Monday Mandala has a wide range of beaver coloring pages ranging from realistic pictures to cartoony ones. They also have one picture that is a cross-section of a beaver lodge. This picture is ideal for fulfilling this requirement.
Story: The Lodge That Beaver Built
Fulfills Requirements #8: Read a story about beavers, their families, and how parent beavers protect their young.
I am enchanted by The Lodge that Beaver Built by Randi Sonenshine. Anne Hunter’s drawings are gorgeous, and the text is enjoyable to read aloud. This book does a beautiful job of highlighting how beavers benefit the animal community around them. The pictures of the beaver family working together are lovely. There is some wonderful information at the back of the book that you might enjoy reading to help you as you prepare to teach about beavers.
Extra Time: Community Service Cards or Baby Beaver Free Play
I keep card kits ready for any class that needs some time filler at the end of the meeting. The cards the kids make either go to our church’s eldest members or to a local organization that uses them as part of their program to support and encourage the local community. You can find the cards and more information here: Fall, Winter, Spring.
Extra time is also a great time to loop around to repeat a game or activity the kids really enjoyed.
Book Reviews
North American Animals: American Beavers from Bellwether Media is a great book for the Beaver Award. I think it covers all the requirements Beavers Are Busy covers. The pages are filled with full-color photographs. This is level 3 reader, so there is just a small amount of text on each beautiful two page spread. It comes in a sturdy hardback cover.
Beaver Colony by Julie Murray has wonderful full page photographs of beavers. The photos are excellent, however, there isn’t very much text. If you are looking for photographs of beavers, but don’t need the book to cover all the information this award requires, this is a great book, but if you want to cover requirements 1-6 with a single book, this isn’t the book for you. I think it can cover requirement #8. (Read a story about beavers, their families, and how parent beavers protect their young.)
Five Busy Beavers by Stella Partheniou Grasso is a fun beaver-themed counting book. The cartoony illustrations are colorful and fun. This book isn’t going to fulfill requirements for the award. But, if you are looking for a fun beaver-themed book, if you need an extra little activity, this might be the book for you.
Downloads
What is your favorite activity to do with your Adventurers while learning about beavers?