We often talk to children about the importance of being flexible and adapting to new situations. This lesson about mastodons focuses on how physical adaptations help animals live in different environments. By looking at the different body parts of both a mastodon and a modern day elephant, children are able to see similarities/differences and predict why these traits changed from the ice age period to present day. What about these physical traits help the animal in their environment? By observing and predicting, children are practicing their critical thinking skills and gaining deeper understandings than if they were simply told the answer.

Designed as part of the Get a Head Start with the Smithsonian collaboration with the National Head Start Association, these activities support the following Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework (ELOF) standards:

- Goal P-LC 1. Child attends to communication and language from others.

- Goal P-LC 2. Child understands and responds to increasingly complex communication and language from others.

- Goal P-ATL 11. Child shows interest in and curiosity about the world around them.

- Goal P-ATL 13. Child uses imagination in play and interactions with others.

- Goal P-SCI 1. Child observes and describes observable phenomena (objects, materials, organisms, and events).

- Goal P-SCI 2. Child engages in scientific talk.

- Goal P-SCI 3. Child compares and categorizes observable phenomena.

- Goal P-SCI 5. Child plans and conducts investigations and experiments.

- Goal P-SCI 6. Child analyzes results, draws conclusions, and communicates results.

Goals for Scaffolding for Infants/Toddlers:

- Goal IT-LC 12. Child comprehends meaning from pictures and stories.

- Goal IT-ATL 7. Child shows interest in and curiosity about objects, materials, or events.

- Goal IT-ATL 8. Child uses creativity to increase understanding and learning.

- Goal IT-C 1. Child actively explores people and objects to understand self, others, and objects.

- Goal IT-C 2. Child uses understanding of causal relationships to act on social and physical environments.