Fun and Squirrels

Fun and Squirrels

The squirrel family scientific name is Sciuridae. The squirrels of North America can be divided into two main groups. Ground squirrels and tree squirrels. The ground squirrels include Chipmunks, Marmots, Antelope squirrels, Ground Squirrels, and Prairie Dogs. Tree squirrels, include red, gray, and flying squirrels. 

Squirrels in general are thinking four major thoughts. Where is danger? Where is food? Do I eat now or store this food? Where can I store food?

The size and type of the food makes the decision between, eat now or store easy. Like all animals the squirrel knows wither the food it found would provide the animal with the energy it would use to find a place to store that food. It also knows which food items would rot if stored. Very small seeds such as the seeds you find on a strawberry, and the berry itself, are eaten on the spot while the squirrel looks for danger and something that stores better. Seeds as small as a strawberries are not worth storing and the berry would rot.  Large seeds such as a kernel of corn or nut would be stored. 

Have each student draws a picture of a squirrel on an unlined index card. Squirrel cards are placed face down. 

Take a playing card deck and shuffle them place them face down on the table between players. Black cards spades and clubs,  represent seeds that are too small to store and are eaten on the spot. Red cards, hearts and diamonds, represent seeds and nuts  that are  good for storing. Kings, queens, jacks represent predators or animals that want to eat the squirrel. 

Set aside jokers and aces.

Students draw one card each turn. When they draw a red food card, something to store, a student can turn their squirrel cards face up and on the next turn start collecting nuts or seeds,  red cards, to store if and when  they are drawn. Food that is two small or must be eaten, not stored, the black cards, are put into a discard stack. 

When anyone draws a face or ace card they can give that card to another player. That squirrel did not see the predator and was eaten. The eaten squirrel must return all its stored nuts to the discard pile, turn his or her squirrel face down, and start all over collecting nuts, after a red card is drawn. 

When there are no more cards to draw, the discard pile is shuffled, restacked and the game continues until this stack is also used, then the game ends. Or you can shuffle and keep playing until all the squirrels have decided it is too dangerous in that part of the woods, and are keeping their squirrel cards face down. Any squirrel can skip or not draw a card during their turn and place their squirrel face down, hiding from a possible predator that might be drawn, until it is their turn again. To return to play the squirrel must again first draw a red card. The squirrel with the most stored nuts, red cards, wins.

Tree squirrels use  are two strategies for hiding food. One is to all the nuts in a few places, or piles called middens, cover them and then guard these middens from other animals that will want to steal them or eat them. The other way is to hide nuts or seeds one at a time. Then only one or two nuts might be lost if dug up by another animal. Middens need to be protected but if each nut is buried by itself in a large area, like in the shade of a different type tree, one nut might be found but not all of them. The squirrel needs only remember which tree it buried its nuts by.

Have each student color 10 pieces of paper in an individual pattern, then hide in the room. These "nuts" the students will need to find at the end of the lesson.

To the card game above add in the jokers and aces. Play the game again but this time when a joker or ace is drawn that squirrel has drew the joker or ace, just found the midden of another squirrel. The student that draws a joker or ace can give that card to any player and then take all that players nuts. At the end of the game the squirrel with the most stored nuts wins. the squirrels still need to watch out for predators so the other face cards are still part of the game.

Most ground squirrels build a multi chambered home in the ground. Most have a sleeping room, a food storage room and at least a second entrance or escape doorway.

Usually the squirrel's home are for that squirrel alone or a mother with babies, though Marmots, Ground Squirrels, and Prairie Dogs will dig homes near each other. Tree squirrels will sometimes come together in the same nest during the worst of the cold winter days. Of the members of the squirrel family that live close together all year, the Prairie dogs are the most famous. Prairie dog towns can have as many as a 1000 animals in it. Members of several generations of a prairie dog family  will build near each other. There can be several of these extended families in a single town. Prairie dogs will eat and harvest seeds and plants from an area about 30 feet around their homes. Because some plants grow each year from seeds, and others grow bushier with trimming, ground squirrels can control their food source. Those plants that grow from seed each year, may not grow because the ground squirrels eat the seeds and or prevent the plant from growing long enough to produce seeds. These plants die out in the area around a ground squirrel town. Other plants are able to grow because they now get the sun they needs. The plants that are controlled in this way by ground squirrels often attract cows, bison and other similar grass eating animals that want a change of menu.

Because some animals eat the seeds of plants, some plants produce seeds that can be partly eaten and still sprout then grow.  It has been found that acorns, the seeds of oak trees  can grow into a plant even when a squirrel has eaten a small but choice part of the seed. The part of the acorn the squirrels seem to really eat is small and at the base of the nut.  The important part of the seed that the plant grows from is at the other end of the acorn. It is thought that the oak seeds have changed to survive a nibble from a squirrel.

In a way many animals may help or force a plant to change.

Have students pair up. One is the squirrel one is the plant. Both will need scissors. Give the plant a 8 inch square of newspaper or other scrap paper. The plant cuts a shape, its seed, from the paper and hands the paper seed to the squirrel. The squirrel cuts off half the seed to eat and returns the piece of paper to the plant. The plant re-cuts the paper to make the same shape again but smaller from the left over piece of paper, and hands the changed paper seed to the squirrel which again cuts half to eat. The paper is handed back and forth until the squirrel decides the seed is not worth the energy to eat and leaves it alone. 

In this case the squirrel has caused the plant to produce very small seeds. Some very big trees come from some very tinny seeds.

Tree squirrels are always looking for some place to store their nuts. Any opening in tree or ground is looked into. In this way the tree squirrel finds places that might do for raising a family, store nuts, flee to in case of danger, and use as a home or drey for winter. Not only do squirrels use holes in trees as dreys, they also build winter dreys from sticks and leaves. 

When people build a home they put walls and a roof together to make one or many rooms. We build around a open space. I believe but have never seen a squirrel do this, that  squirrel has no idea of how to build a house like we do, the squirrel just starts to put sticks  in a pile, which will become a ball of sticks and leaves. The squirrel then chews a space out of the center, fills this space with softer material and burrows into the middle to sleep through the coldest of winters long days. 

Cut a piece of brown construction paper into strips. The thinner the strips the more time and work the squirrel will have to do to make its home. For younger children strips about  ½ inch wide by 6 inches long would work nice. Have students start gluing the strips together to make a ball shape as wide as the strips are long. Once a circle of construction paper strips  has been glued together use a hole punch to make a starter hole for scissors and cut a half to inch wide hole. Put a layer of glue on one side of the drey, from around the edge of the drey's door, to half way  to the edge of the drey,  and stick on some sort of fluff. I used  scrap quilt batting. Once the glue is dry draw a face on an index finger and the squirrel can poke its head through the hole to check if the weather is warm enough to go to one of its store rooms and have a bit to eat or go back to sleep. One side of the model shows the drey from the outside and one side the inside.

Hmmmm now just were did your store those ten nuts? It is time to find the nuts you hid around the room. Squirrels need to find as many of their own nuts as possible but if they find someone else's, well yum yum. When you think you have found all the nuts hidden, who has the most? Who found the most of his or her own nuts? 10 nuts might be easy but what if you hid 20, 30?

This ends this unit on squirrels.

Bats and Echo Locating

Bats and Echo Locating

 

Scientists that study bats have grouped them into two large groups and then divide these two large groups into many small ones. The two large groups are, mega bats and micro bats. The big differences are that the mega bats do not live in North or South America, eat almost only fruit or flower parts, usually do not depend on echo-location to find food, and are generally larger bats. Micro bats live all over the world except in Antarctica or in places during the time that area has below freezing temperatures. They are small bats. Although most micro bats are insect eaters, there is some type of micro bat that eats almost any other type of food that is smaller than it is. Some eat mice, some fish, some other bats, some the same foods as the mega bats, flower parts and fruit, and the infamous vampire bats. 

 

 

The two most unique things about bats is that they can fly and most micro bats find food by echo location. Of these two echo location is what bats are most famous for. Echo location is using sound to find things. Sound moves through the air by wiggling what ever it hits. Even the air has little bits and pieces in it that are move by any sound we make. When sound waves hit something the sound waves can be soaked up and so become quieter, or bounce off things like a ball bouncing off the wall of a room. If we hear the sound that is bounced back we call it an echo. We hear echoes best in a room that has nothing in it, and its walls covered with hard shiny material like tile. It is this sound wave bouncing ability that bats use, but bats can hear these echoes much better than we humans can. When a sound wave bounces off something part is absorbed and part moves back in the direction it came from. The sound wave is changed. It is the changes in the returning sound wave that the bats understand, use to find food and avoid danger.

 

 

Learning activity

 

Materials

 

Crayons

Scrap white copy paper with a blank side, cut in quarters, 5 ½ by 4 ¼ inches.

Rubbing templates

Rubbing templates can be made by gluing scraps heavier paper onto some of the 5 ½ by 4 ¼ inch scrap copy paper. The heaver scraps can be simple strips cut to different sizes. To some of the strips of paper add a notch.

 

Set the notched templates aside. Have students turn the other rubbing templates face down and mix them up. Each student then draws a template, selects a light color of crayon, and makes a rubbing. What do they see? The crayon is the sound wave a bat is sending out. The sound wave fills an area. When it hits an object it changes. Part is bounced back towards the bat. It is the change in the sound wave that the bat understands and uses to tell it where its food is and avoid danger.

 

Add the notched templates face down and mix them in with the other templates. These represent insects. Allow students a certain amount of time to make rubbings. At the end of this time the students count how many insects they have caught.

 

Learning activity

 

Materials

 

Ping pong balls

Several other types of play balls, such as, small rubber balls, golf balls, even marbles. Students will be rolling these balls around the room so think of how much bounce you want your materials to have and what the balls will sooner or later bounce into, get lost only to be under foot at the wrong time.

 

Large activity area.

 

Different objects such as small blocks of wood or boxes paper bags, that will act differently when a ball is rolled into them.

 

Different surfaces to roll the balls over.

 

Card board tubes from paper towels

 

One large box for each group of students.

 

 

Most young people, and some of us older ones, have not had much practice on how to make a play ball move in a specific direction. Which for this activity is good.

 

Set up two objects about a foot apart. And have each student roll a ball between these two objects. The students are young bats learning how to use and control their echo locations abilities. With this activity these bats are learning how to control the sound wave they produce.

 

The balls represent different strengths of sound produced.  When all students have rolled their ball between the two objects, allow them to switch balls with another student and repeat. Repeat until everyone has had a chance to roll each ball. Allow students to comment on which ball they like best and why. Place the two objects on different surfaces such as a rug one time and a non rug surface and allow students to roll the balls again then decide which ball they like for which surface and why.

 

Move the activity to a non rug surface repeat. After each round, narrow the distance between the two objects.

 

Use the paper towel tubes to make a guide for the ping pong, or golf balls to roll down and repeat the activity with just the ping pong balls and golf balls.

 

Set up different objects as targets have students use their hands to roll the gulf balls towards the targets. Which allows the student to hit the target more often? Use both ping pong and golf balls.

 

Bats need their sound waves to bounce off  objects and return to them. Move the activity so that students can roll their balls towards a wall. You might like to make some rules that involve controlling the force that students use to roll their balls towards the wall. The object is to get the ball to bounce off the wall and return to the student, not hurt someone or something. If a sound wave comes back to the bat so hard that it hurts the bat the bat would never use it. So the smart bat that has learned to send the most sound waves in the smallest amount of time in an easy predictable pattern.

 

We know that if you are facing the person that is talking you hear that person best, but you can hear a person that is facing away from you. This means that sound moves away from the source in all directions. Like us, bats are made to travel best going forward, so it is easiest to catch food that is in front of the bat. Because of this the bat concentrates sending and hearing its sound waves returning from things in front of him.

 

Divide the students into groups. One student in each group moves the box towards the student with the ping pong balls. The student with the ping pong balls moves towards the student with the box and rolls the ping pong balls at the box so that he can catch each ping pong ball on its return bounce.

 

Being able to hear most of the returning sound waves allows the bat to build a picture of what is in its flight path, be it food or something to be avoided, such as a tree.

 

Because most bats find food by sound waves bouncing off these food items, they need to concentrate their hearing towards the area in front of them. Therefore the echo locating bats have large ears. They also have facial features that help them direct the sound waves in the directions they need to hear reflections from. So not only do echo locating bats have huge ears for their head size they also have strange noses. Micro bats produce their sound waves from both their moths and noses. It is not understood just how of if  all the strange facial designs help with echo location. The facial forms may be more for smelling friends and relatives than food.

 

It makes sense that a bat can control its sound production to match the distance from food, speed of travel, and knowledge of objects that need to be avoided. To do this a bat does not send out one burst of sound but several as it moves. The returning or reflected sound waves help the bat understand how it must change its flight path to catch the insect or animal it wants to catch.

 

Like all animals that must hunt their food. A bat must take in more food than it uses as energy. The best thing most micro bats have going for them is that there are more insects in the world than any other type of animal. Still there are times when insects become scarce. Insects do not like cold temperatures. So areas that have months of cold or freezing weather have few bats or have bats that can adjust to the cold in some way. Some fly to a warmer area. Some find a place to stay, called a roost, that is warmer and wait until things warm up. Some are able to slow down their metabolism so they use only a small portion of food or energy stored in their bodies as they wait for the weather to warm. This slowed metabolism rate is called torpor. Some times the state of torpor is for a few days, but they can enter this state for over 100 days. But what ever way the bat uses to avoid the dangers of weather they must have some sort of energy reserve. To extend the this energy reserve as long as possible bats also need a roost that is at a constant temperature or allows them to keep their own body temperatures at a constant temperature, no matter what the weather temperature outside is.

 

Learning activity

 

Cards with either gray, white circles or weather symbols on them.

I make my card template by inserting a table into a new document.

 

I make the cells six lines of text high.

 

Next I insert circles in all but one row of cells. Each circle row of cells, will have, two cells with single circles, one cell with two circles, on cell with three circles. One half circle rows will have circles filled in with gray. The other rows of circle cells left white In the last row of cells, I draw one sun in each of two cells, and in the other two, one cloud shape per cell. These sun and cloud cells represent days that are either too cold or too hot for bats to hunt food. Your page of cells or cards should have, three rows of cells with gray circles, three rows of cells with white circles, and one row of weather cells. You will need at least one page of cells or cards per three students.

 

Squares of colored paper about one inch square or so.

 

Students draw one card per turn. There are two turns per round. At the end of a round the bat with more food, the white circles, then spend energy, the grayed circles stays alive, and can take a colored piece of paper. When the cards have all been drawn the game is over. Which ever bat has the most colored pieces of paper wins. At the end of a round the circle cards are put in a discard stack. Only the colored squares are kept. These represent stored food energy in the bat.

 

Just like us some days are too cold or too hot to hunt food. If the weather is too cool, a cloud card, then the bat will enter a torpor state. If the day is too hot the bat will need to stay cool and does this by fanning itself with its wings. Either way the bat must use valuable stored energy to stay alive till the next time it can hunt.

 

Mix the sun and cloud cards in with the food and energy cards, mix them up, stack and start the game.

 

This time when one of the two cards drawn for a round is a sun or cloud, the other card must be a two circle food card, white circles. One circle is used to keep cool and one to hunt. If the bats other card is just one circle then the bat must hand in one of his or her colored pieces of paper, using up that stored energy to survive.

Ungulate Predator Race game

Make a game board from a piece of 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper by drawing a grid of one inch or so squares. I did this on the computer by inserting a table 7 cells wide, each cell four or five lines tall.

Cut pieces of colored scrap paper to represent groups of ungulates. I used brown for the open area ungulates, black for the forest ungulates, and red for the predators.

Three players per board.

Each player colors a group of 3 to 7 of connecting cells/squares green. These green areas represent forest areas. Now color a green one square straight path from one forest area to another and to the top and bottom of the paper. These paths can not line up with each other and must be straight.

The large ungulates graze in the open or non green squares. They are too large to escape into a jungle which has many obstacles they would have to go over or under, most likely breaking a leg, therefore becoming dinner.

There are small ungulates, some as small as a medium size dog, or smaller. Most do not have any head gear. They are just the right form and size to dive into the thick of a forest or wooded area to escape predators. Their food is more specialized such as berries, flowers, buds, This type food is not as abundant as is the grass of large grassy open areas, so these ungulates to move as individuals, not as a heard.

All animals can move three spaces each turn.

Predators can move can move one space into any green area. Predators can move in any direction.

Large ungulates can move one space into any green area.  but they can only move in straight lines

Small ungulates can move anywhere and in any directions in the green areas, but can not move more than one space beyond the green

Animals do not have to move.

A predator captures by landing on the same space as an ungulate is on, at which time the predators stops to eat. This means if the predator captures in a one or two space move, then the predators turn is over

Players move three large or small ungulates, or one predator.

Large ungulates must move together.

Small ungulates do not move as a group.

Ungulates start first.

The first player to move the most surviving  ungulates from on side of the game board, and off the opposite side wins,

Each game boards can be saved and added to a newer one. As the total size of the game board grows so can the size of the herds each player moves per turn. Predators can also change from individual hunters to multi member group of hunters. As the number of predators working together grows then the number of ungulates captured in a single turn must go up to allow the predators to eat the food they need to have the energy to hunt again. As the game board area grows then number of spaces a ungulate herd needs to move changes, so that they can move to an area that is not yet eaten. This is up to you to decide. 

Remember the rules I provide are just a guide, which you can change to fit the facts you learn, as you read about different animals and how they live.

Tsunamis learning activity

Tsunamis in simple form a splash of water.

Materials

Square or rectangle shaped Tub 

Water

Objects to put or drop into water.

Set of dominoes, the more the merrier

Ping Pong ball or other light weight ball

12 inch by half inch piece of paper per student

one or two bricks or large flat rocks

Non water based markers

I first started learning about tsunamis while doing dishes at mom's command. So should you be asked to do dishes, it is not a chore but a chance to observe small tsunamis in action.

OR with a parent or guardian watching.

On a nice warm or even hot day take a tub that can hold water outside and drag out the water hose to a open area that can be flooded with water. Find other objects to drop into, float on, or push the water in the tub around with.

First fill the tub with water all the way to the top. This is the ocean. Now drop in a large object. What happens? The large object pushed water aside as it entered the full tub of water. That water had to go some where. That somewhere was out of the tub. No matter how careful you are, if your tub of water is full as can be. Anything else added will cause a flood of some sort and water will move from the tub to the area around it. 

How many different ways can you force water out of the tub? Don't refill the tub until  you can't splash any water out at all. Then try this activity again, this time placing dry objects around the tub. Can you form a wave that will get only the objects on one side wet? Two sides wet? Three sides? How do you control your waves?

If you have some way to make the surface of the water in the tub level with a surface that you can place different objects on, try the same activity above again.

With a tsunami some sort of land movement has caused a section of land to shove push on a section of water.  that section of water pushes on other sections of water and so on.

You can see how this happens if you line up the dominoes so that if one falls over it pushes the next, which pushes the next. If you set up the dominoes so that they run into a wall the wave stops. What happens to the last domino? what happens if you set up the dominoes so that each one barley touches the next when it has fallen? Set up the dominoes so that they are close together and place the ping pong ball at the far end of the line of dominoes then make the earth quake that starts your tsunami. What happens to your ball? Set up the dominoes so that each domino just touches the next. Set the ping pong ball at the end and start your Tsunami. What is the difference? Why?

The damage a Tsunami does depends on how much water is pushed when the Tsunami is first started. How hard that water is pushed, and how long in needs to travel before it hits something.  

Give each student a piece of paper 12 inches long by half an inch wide. Have them make a circle with the paper. A Tsunami moving through the ocean is much like this loop of paper. Make a small tab at each end of the paper by folding about half an inch upwards. Form the loop again on a table, holding one tab with one hand and sliding the other tab along the table top. The tsunami is changing shape. If this were a ball of water it would spread out. Move your piece of paper so that it is about 6 inches from a wall and do the same thing. Here there is more water than can spread out. The flood will be thin as thin or shallow as the paper is because it has a huge place to spread out on. Have one student hold the tabs closer together and then an other push down on the top of the loop to make a table like form. In this model the Tsunami has come to a smaller area so if it made a flood taller than the first model where the paper was had room to lie flat.

 Stretch the piece of paper out on a flat surface or table and tape one end of the paper down. Slide the free end along the surface the table towards the taped end. Gently keep moving the free end up and over the taped end. How does the shape of the paper change? Why? 

Back to the tub of water. Measure and draw a line about two or three inches up the sides of the tub.  Add water to this line. 

This time add a glass of water to the tub. Pour the glass in slowly. What happens. Return the level of water to be even with the line. Pour different amounts at different speeds. Watch happens.  

Can you control how the water acts in the tub? Can you make it splash? Can you make the water rise fast but with out a splash?

Build an island with the bricks or rocks in the center of the tub. Add water half way up the island, mark the water level on the side of the tub. Add water again, and observe what happens. If you place your island in a corner or near the side of the of the tub how does this change what happens to your island and the town on it?

Now we have learned a bit about Tsunamis do you think you would want to build a home right down near the ocean? As for me I'll build high and drive to the beach. Then park with the front of my car pointed away from shore, and pin the car key to my shirt!

Earthquake learning activity for tots and students

Earth quake movements learning activity and game.

 

Materials needed

Large open play area

Foot long pieces of crape paper streamer, one for every two students.

Empty breakfast cereal boxes ideally one per student.

Cardboard tubes from inside paper towels or tubes of paper rolled up and taped two per student.

Small pieces of cardboard one per student

Tape or glue

 

There are at least four types of ground motions earthquakes make. The first called a P Wave, for primary wave. The P waves can be demonstrated by taking a normal step forward and a small step back, normal step forward and small step back. You expand and contract while moving away from a starting point. P waves can move through liquid.

 

The next type wave is an S wave or secondary wave. This wave can be demonstrated by walking forward while moving your body from side to side as you move forward. Step left then step right as you move forward along a straight line your body rather stiff. S waves do not travel through liquid.

 

Of the more destructive waves produced are the Love wave and Rayleigh waves, named for the men that discovered these elements of an earthquake. These waves travel along the surface of the ground. Both get weaker as the move away from the epicenter or starting point of the earthquake.

 

The love wave also moves from side to side but this time you should try to snake your body from side to side as you walk forward so that with one step your waist is to the left while your feed and head are to the right.

 

With the Rayleigh wave, the ground moves as an ocean wave moves with an added side to side element. So you will be moving your body up and down so that your head, if it could, would draw a circle in the air as you take steps from side to side.

 

Have students practice these movements while walking across an open play area.

 

Allow students to comment on how easy or difficult it is to do each of these movements, and what happens to their bodies while they are doing them. Then add the empty cereal boxes. Have students try walking normally while balancing the boxes on their heads. Then add the earthquake wave movements. Allow students to comment on what happened. Where did the boxes fall in relation to their body movements? Have the students hold their hands open flat with their palms up place the cereal boxes on their hands and repeat the earthquake wave motions. In all these  exercises students must stop once the box drops to the floor.

 

Collect the empty boxes.

 

Once they have master these movements have them each decide on an earthquake wave movement to use. Or to make sure all waves are present number the students from one to four and those students with number one are P waves, those with two are S waves, Those with three are Love waves and those with four are Rayleigh waves. Have students hold a one foot piece of crape paper streamer by the ends between two students. Stretch out so that the streamer is stretched a bit, making a continuous line of students connected by the streamers. Student streamer, Student streamer.

 

On your word have the students start moving away from the start of the earthquake or the earthquakes epicenter. Students must stop moving once the crape paper is ripped. Pick up the pieces of crape paper streamer and toss the shortest and hold the longest between students and repeat the game.

 

Discuss what happens and why.

 

Have the students first hold a paper tube and place a piece of paper on the tube, then move across the play area using one of the earthquake movements. What happens?

 

Give students a second paper tube and have them attach it in any way they want to the first tube and repeat the earth quake movements. Which structure survives the longest? Will it survive all wave movements?

 

Why? Can students build a better earthquake proof structure?

 

Think of Japan and other places that have earth quakes. What do you think should be done to help reduce damage from earthquakes or things that happen because of earthquakes?

Ungulates, food, and predators game

Materials

large open play space

masking tape

crape paper streamers

pieces of colored paper about three inches square

Player Skills 

color recognition

counting skills

Ungulates are animals with hoofs. We think of these animals as horses, cows, dear, sheep, goats, bison, even pigs. There are some members of this family you would not think of as a hoofed animal when you see them, such as elephant,  aardvark, hyrax, tapirs, rhino, and hippos.

Ungulates must by nature eat and run. To have the energy they need and because the food they eat is at times dry, stringy and not full of easy energy, they must eat a lot. So they spend a great deal of time eating, and to survive, thinking of running.

Although most are large animals, there are still other animals out there thinking dinner, when they see ungulates eating.

Game preparation

Mark a space in the center of the play space equal to about one fourth the total play area with the masking tape. If you are going to have to remove the tape make sure to fold over the ends a bit to give you an easy tap to grab. This area is where the best food grows, so where our ungulates want to eat. Now mark a space at the outer edge of the play space as the safe zone. This is were the ungulates will run to to be out of the predators reach.

Place the colored pieces of paper in the food area and mix them up well, these are different types of food.

One of the players is the hungry predator the others are hungry ungulates.

The ungulates are given a length of crape paper to attach to their waist.

To catch an ungulate the predator must grab the crape paper.

Players must not bump into each other, which is not the natural thing they would do, but for safety sake a rule to this game. If there is bumping then those players are out for two or three rounds.

The predator stands by the instructor and the ungulates are allowed to go eat. When the ungulates are eating the instructor tags the predator and the predator goes on the hunt and tries to grab an ungulate's crape paper. The other ungulates not wanting to be eaten scatter to the save zones.

If the predator catches an ungulate, the predator becomes an ungulate and the ungulate a predator. The game is played until all have become a predator or the instructor thinks its best to quit. 

The ungulates that make it to the safe zone count how many pieces of food they have. Those that have the most win that round.

After a few rounds of ungulates eating any type of food, up grade the game. In life some ungulates prefer  a certain type of food, and even have teeth specialized to chew this type of food, so now the ungulates must pick one color of food that is the only food they can pick up.

The next time the predator hunts,  the ungulates that have the most of their colored food win. If an ungulate has eaten a different color, oh dear they must sit out a  round. For who knows that bit of food may have been the death of him or her!

You can allow the predators to hunt in prides, packs, or families. This will of course effect the health of the herd.

Some ungulates are shaped just right to shove into a forest thick with fallen trees to escape the predator. I'm thinking of the tapir. If there is time set up a ring of obstacles such as empty boxes to allow the ungulates to scatter between. Predators are allowed only through a few special marked spaces to get to an ungulate.

The game continues as before. 

There is nothing that says the ungulates can't have a watcher in the herd that helps the herd keep and eye on the predators but this is something the ungulates should think of themselves.  Should this happen the watcher should also have to pick up food. They need the energy to escape so a number of pieces of paper should be decided on that the watcher must pick up before the herd flees to safety. 

Experience is a good teacher.

A bit of guided observation by the players of this game may help in understanding the life of an ungulate in the wild.

Have fun!