According to the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education (2018), only 16% of the elementary teachers surveyed reported including hands-on activities in all or most of their lessons. Strategies that engage students in hands-on investigations help improve student achievement (Minner, Levy, and Century 2010) and provide students with a joyous opportunity to explore natural phenomena firsthand. Creating opportunities for students to actively engage in authentic scientific processes in multiple ways helps alleviate student misconceptions about the nature of science. The lesson in this article was designed to integrate the use of science journaling and inquiry to help students improve their observation skills and create testable questions to gather more information on their critter's needs, behavior, and growth. This unit is in keeping with the recommendations from the National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) Position Statement for Elementary School Science (2018) that teachers should allow students to design their own investigations, practice science with a group, and allow for science discourse to share their findings and make evidence-based claims. To accomplish these goals, the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS) standard 3-LS1-1 From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes was used for this lesson.