A Plethora of habitat websites and activities

This post is going to be formatted a little differently than most are-so fair warning. 🙂  I do a lot of digging for resources and tools for our inquiry block at Anastasis Academy.  I thought it might be about time I shared the love here!  If you find it useful, I may include some more of these kinds of posts periodically.

Right now our students are learning about how the world works.  They are inquiring into animal habitats and needs.

Websites:

1. Draw a habitat– my favorite from PBS!
2. Plant and Animal Habitats from BBC has students working with the Sarah Jane Adventures team to complete a habitat interactive activity where students match aliens with the best habitat based on clues about both creature and habitat.
3. Learn about habitats with this virtual text from BBC.
4. Create a butterfly habitat by adding and removing plants.
5. Explore the Deep Sea habitat with this interactive from National Geographic.
6. Explore the Antarctica habitat with National Geographic’s Critter Cam.
7. Build an online habitat with Switch Zoo.
8. Design a Habitat with ARKive education.
9. The Great Habitat Match with the Magic School Bus Gang.
10. Walk in the Forest helps students learn about layers of habitats in the forest.
11. Animal Homes (this is a good one for kindergarten or younger).
12. Frog habitats– students help a frog find a new home.
13. e-Learning for kids habitat interactive.

Activities:

• Remember cootie catchers? Or fortune tellers?  They are easily folded out of a regular 8.5×11″ piece of paper.  Students can use cootie catchers to show their knowledge, and quiz each other, about habitats.  Ask students to each choose a different habitat to create their cootie catcher about.  Each flap can have a different word that describes the habitat (for example: desert might say “dry”, “barren”, “extreme temperatures”, “low vegetation”).  The next flap can have a type of animal that lives in that type of habitat.  The last flap can include a fact about why that habitat is perfect for the animal.  To play with the cootie catcher, one student chooses a word and the other spells the word out while opening and closing the cootie catcher.  The first student chooses a new word and the second student spells the word out while manipulating the cootie catcher.  On the final turn, the student chooses a flap to be opened to reveal the fact.
• Create a complete ecosystem: photosynthesis, rain, decomposition, life cycles  http://cranberrycorner.blogspot.com/2010/07/summer-fun-ecosystem-edition.html 

There are SO many fun ways to explore habitats and animals…if you have outdoor space at your school, send students outside to explore the habitats they walk right by every day.