Inquiry into Habitats

November 15, 2024

Habitats

As part of our unit Sharing the Planet, we have a strong focus on habitats. As a class, we are learning that a habitat is the natural home for plants and animals across the globe. Below, I have included some of the learning practices and activities we have been implementing as part of our learning journey.

Circle Time

We started by introducing our self to different habitats in Circle Time. We wanted to share our prior knowledge of habitats around the world, starting off with desert, jungle, forest and arctic. We began by working together to name each habitat as a group, shouting out our answers as we went from one picture to the next.

Next up, we worked to extend our plant knowledge by taking a closer look at a selection of plants from each habitat. We noticed that although there were plants as far as the eye could see in the forest and jungle, they were a lot more sparse in the desert and arctic. We discussed why this might be the case as we reviewed our prior knowledge of plants and how they grow.

Finally, we looked at a page full of different animals. As volunteers shouted out which animal they'd like to put back in their habitat, we again worked as a group to decide whether each animal lived in the arctic, forest, jungle or desert.

Another Circle Time activity, we added 'ocean' to our list and played a matching pairs game. Face down, on the carpet, were 5 animals, and 5 descriptions. When it was our turn, we had to turn 2 over. If they matched the same habitat we could keep them. Another friend would then go and get the correct picture for the habitat. For example, a photo of a toucan would match with the 'jungle' description. This pair would then be matched to the picture of the jungle on the board. However, if our overturned pair came from different habitats, we had to turn them back over for the next player. As the game continued, we found that it was turning into a memory game as we tried our best to remember where our matching pair was hidden.

In our final Circle Time before home time we looked at our 5 exciting options, and thought about which one we were most interested in. Which habitat had the most exciting plants? The 'best' animals? Did we want to learn about a hot or cold climate? Underwater or on land?

Each Dolphin was given a little magnet that they could use to vote for their favourite. When it was their turn, they had to come up and place their magnet on the board, next to their most fascinating habitat. At the end of this process, we tallyed up the votes and found that the category with the largest number of votes for the AM Class, was 'ocean'. In the PM class, we found that we had a tie between jungle and arctic. We did one final vote with everyone who wanted jungle sitting down, whilst all the arctic lovers stood up. In the end, the jungle narrowly won the vote.

As we continue on with our research, we will be looking at four different categories. The Kiddle search engine (a child-friendly Google), informative videos, fiction and non-fiction books, and any 'experts' we can find. These experts could be our family members, friends or teachers who are well versed on a topic.

Small World and Sensory Habitats

In our small world and sensory tray, we have been tackling the 5 habitats that we have taken a peek into. We explored the ocean animals in a water-filled sensory tray, and the arctic in a snowy and icy one. In an art activity, AM and PM classes worked to produce the backgrounds for our desert, forest and jungle habitats in the small world area. With this combination all set out together, we could either sort the animals into their correct habitats, or focus on constructing homes for them altogether. When we had finished exploring our play through these habitats, we worked together to make an arctic habitat in the same area. This then evolved into a jungle habitat, and a shark game following our class votes. In Open Play, we also had the option to go to the Monkey room to first build large habitats that we and our soft toy animals could fit into, before arranging a variety of small habitats using natural materials and small world animals.

Music and Movement

Another way for us to solidify our knowledge of animals and their various habitats was through the medium of song. Combining the visuals, song lyrics and physical actions, helped all of our physical learners in the classroom to process the information in a fun and active way. Below are some of the songs we have been using, should our Dolphins want to jam away at home.

Habitat Song