Opossums
Introductory Facts
Watch the four-minute video "Opossums".
Activity 1
When they feel threatened, opossums flop onto their sides and pretend to be dead until they have an opportunity to escape. That's called "playing possum". Play musical opossums (statues) and freeze when the music stops!
Curriculum areas: S06a, S06b, S06c, S06e, X02c
Activity 2
Opossums are great at climbing trees by digging into their bark with their long claws. They also hang from the branches by just their tails! Just like coathangers. Practice hanging up coathangers.
For an older child, take pipecleaners and practice wrapping one end once or twice around the coathanger - does it stay on when you shake the coathanger like the wind? What about if you thread some beads onto the long end of the pipecleaner to make it heavier?
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Lunch Snack
Opossums are marsupials, which means they have pouches where their babies live. They are also omnivorous scavengers, and eat anything they can find - mice, insect, birds, worms, snakes, chickens, troadkill, things found in garbage cans and dumpsters, you name it.
For lunch, fill a pita pocket with as many different sorts or colours of food as you can. Or, for a treat, go and get shawarma.
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Activity 3
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