30 of the Best Bat Videos for Kindergarten
Teaching a bat theme to your kindergarten class in October is a fang-tastic way of bringing science and Halloween together in an age-appropriate and engaging way! 🦇 I hope this collection of bat videos for kindergarten will give you what you need to enrich your bat unit with interesting footage, fascinating information, and opportunities for subject integration, music, and movement!
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Scroll on to see a flock of bat videos for kindergarten! I’ve categorized the videos to help you quickly find what you’re looking for.
Find more bat resources in this Keeping Them Curious post!
Bat Videos that Teach Science Concepts
First, I’ll share some excellent bat videos for teaching and reinforcing science concepts. Videos like these can be a great way for students to collect facts to fuel informational writing!
This first video from SciShow Kids is short but packed with clear information and imagery. Starting with a wonderful (and really kid-friendly) explanation of echolocation, this video goes on to explain how bats are able to hang upside down for extended periods and why they make wonderful moms. I learned some new things from this one!
SciShow Kids actually has a few bat videos, and since all of their content is such high quality, I’ll share some more here! This one includes more about echolocation (at a slightly slower pace than in the previous video).
This next SciShow episode isn’t specifically for kids, but it’s appropriate for young learners who are curious about bats and may have the attention span for more in-depth information!
This mini-documentary from Freeschool shows many interesting photos and video clips of bats with informational narration. This video might function like a non-fiction read-aloud in your classroom and would be good for gathering information for an anchor chart.
This catchy Bat Song by Mr. R’s Songs for Teaching includes a surprisingly large amount of information for a four-minute song! Paired with cute supporting animation, the lyrics to this song teach about special features of bats, their diet, their habits, and more!
The Kratt Brothers always do such an amazing job of teaching kids about animals. Here’s a clip from their episode about bats. I was also able to find the full episode this was clipped from at PBSKids.org, so if you have a chunk of time you need to fill, try this video of “A Bat in the Brownies.”
If you aren’t able to access the full episode of Wild Kratts above, you might be interested in this episode. It’s about many different nocturnal animals and has a section on bats (taken from the “Bat in the Brownies” episode) near the beginning.
Another full-length video is this “The Magic School Bus Goes Batty” episode. In this episode, the students learn about bats while also becoming convinced that Ms. Frizzle is a vampire out to get their parents. While kid-appropriate and fun, if you have particularly sensitive students this year, you might want to skip this one.
Here’s another bat video that explains echolocation. This one is by JumpStart Academy and is an educational song with animation.
This is another mini-documentary about bats. From National Geographic Kids, this video includes vivid footage of bats in action and a variety of interesting bat facts.
Watch a baby bat learn to use his wings in this video. Ronan is a baby bat being rehabilitated and cared for as he builds the strength to learn to fly. There is a lot of cool footage in this video that will let children see how a bat’s body works. Really neat!
Studying bats? This informational unit includes a PowerPoint and lots of engaging printable activities!
Bats and Owls Unit with PowerPoint
This “All About Bats and Owls” thematic unit includes an informational PowerPoint slideshow and printable materials to help you integrate learning about owls and bats into science, literacy, and math in your primary classroom. You will download a zipped folder containing a PowerPoint File and a PDF.
Bat Videos with Math Concepts
Part of the beauty of teaching with thematic units is being able to integrate content learning across multiple subjects. Here are some bat videos you can use to supplement your kindergarten math instruction!
“Five Little Bats” is set to the tune of “Five Little Ducks,” following a mother bat in her plight to get all of her babies back home. This video has cut-paper illustrations that are animated, giving it a fun feel that might inspire children to want to make their own videos! You can use this bat song to reinforce counting to five (backward and forward) and to introduce beginning subtraction concepts.
This read-aloud math storybook video of Bat Jamboree can also be used to integrate your bat theme into your math block. (You can find the book here on Amazon if you’d rather read it aloud yourself!) Bat Jamboree is a counting book with rhyming text that is just the right length for a kindergarten audience.
The story follows groups of bat performers (increasing in quantity from one to ten) as they put on a show. The culmination involves all 55 of the bats making a pyramid. A follow-up activity idea is to have children use manipulatives to make pyramids, exploring the numbers needed to do so. For example, if the bottom row of the pyramid had four bats, how many total bats would be needed?
Bat math wouldn’t be complete without the Count! In this video, Sesame Street’s Count von Count teaches Elmo one of his favorite songs, “This Old Bat!” A takeoff on “This Old Man,” Count’s song goes through the number five and can be used as a quick math warm-up or a brain break.
This read-aloud video is a little longer and more sophisticated. Bat Count: A Citizen Science Story tells of a girl and her family working to help conservationists by keeping track of the number of bats roosting in their barn. This story doesn’t explicitly teach a math concept, but it shows students an application of math in the real world. (You can find the book Bat Count here on Amazon.)
As a follow-up to the Bat Count read-aloud, students may be interested in this short video with footage of volunteers participating in a bat counting event in Washington.
Looking for more October videos for your kindergarten class? Check out this post full of pumpkin videos and this one full of spider videos!
Bat Videos with Literacy Concepts
Integrating literacy into your bat theme is easy with these videos!
I love the Cool School videos of nursery rhymes! This video, of one of the less common nursery rhymes, is cute and funny like the rest of them. Consider writing the nursery rhyme on chart paper after watching the video to use as a literacy lesson. This one is useful for exploring the long and short sounds of the letter a.
This fingerplay provides another opportunity to do some shared reading and word study on chart paper. You might write the words (which are in the description of the video on YouTube) and read through them with the class. Then you can show the video and have the students practice the hand motions. You can revisit the written poem to highlight various phonics skills you are working on and to practice print concepts.
Kids love practicing the short vowel sounds with this “Vowel Bat” song! This is a great brain break and phonics booster!
This Reading Rainbow video is a perfect integration of literacy and science! In this 9-minute episode, Levar Burton teaches viewers about flying foxes (fruit bats) and then introduces a read-aloud of Stellaluna. This is a beautiful fictional story that highlights many features of bats and offers a comparison of bats and birds. (You can find the book Stellaluna here on Amazon.)
Bats at the Library is a beautifully illustrated rhyming story about literate bats who enjoy a night in the library. This story captures the magic of becoming immersed in a story and is nicely read by Chom Stories in this video. (You can find the book here on Amazon.)
Bat Videos with Art Ideas
A thematic unit wouldn’t be complete without some opportunities for arts and crafts. Here are a few videos with ideas you can use with your class!
Art for Kids Hub makes such amazing directed drawing videos! I love that he has his children draw with him and is so positive about each drawing they make! In this video, viewers will learn to draw a cute cartoon bat. Paired with some bat writing, these drawings would make a perfect bulletin board display!
If you’re ready to brave painting with your kiddos, here’s another video from Art for Kids Hub on how to paint a very simple bat.
This toilet paper roll bat craft is something kindergartners could complete with the help of an older-grade buddy or a parent at a family event. I would recommend making stencils ahead of time for the wings. Also, if collecting toilet paper rolls is an issue, you could just make tubes of black construction paper or cardstock (and skip the painting step altogether).
Speaking of stencils, here’s another fun idea from Easy Peasy and Fun. You could pre-make the bat stencils for the students to trace (or print bat outlines on cardstock). I think this activity would best be completed in small groups with an adult helper!
More Bat Videos: Just for Fun!
Here are some additional bat videos that didn’t quite fit into the other categories. These can be used for brain breaks, fillers, or discussion starters!
Who wouldn’t love to dance the “Batty Bat” with Sesame Street’s Count von Count? This fun song makes a great brain break and movement activity!
This Big Block Singsong bat song is slower-paced and more calming—nice for cooling down after recess!
“Bitty Bitty Bat” is a song that inspires exploration of how children can move their bodies along to music.
Matt the Bat is a silly Halloween-themed song and video with some counting and dancing involved from The Learning Station. This one might be a nice addition to your fall party!
Finally, these baby bats that were rescued in Australia are just the cutest things ever!
I hope this collection of bat videos helps bring your bat theme to the next level! Happy teaching!
Bats and Owls Unit with PowerPoint
This “All About Bats and Owls” thematic unit includes an informational PowerPoint slideshow and printable materials to help you integrate learning about owls and bats into science, literacy, and math in your primary classroom. You will download a zipped folder containing a PowerPoint File and a PDF.
Bat Math Puzzles Center
Bring your bat theme into your math instruction with this set of easy-prep math puzzles! Perfect as an independent practice math center, these fun bat math puzzles include four skills: shape matching (2D & 3D), numbers 1-10, teen numbers, and beginning addition (sums through 5).
