TEACHING

GUIDE

TEACHING

Animal Homes

Kindergarten Reading Level

ISBN 978-0-8225-5672-5

TEACHING

ANIMAL

HOMES

Standards
Science Understands relationships among organisms and their physical environment. Understands the nature of scientific inquiry. Uses the general skills and strategies of the writing process. Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of informational texts. Understands and applies media, techniques, and processes related to the visual arts. Understands how human actions modify the physical environment. Understands and applies basic and advanced properties of the concepts of numbers. Uses movement concepts and principles in the development of motor skills.

Language Arts

Art Geography Mathematics Physical Education

Multiple Intelligences Utilized

Linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, and naturalistic

Copyright 2006 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Student pages may be reproduced by the classroom teacher for classroom use only, not for commercial resale. No other part of this teaching guide may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review. LernerClassroom A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. 241 First Avenue North Minneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A. 800-328-4929 Website address: www.lernerclassroom.com
Manufactured in the United States of America 5 6 7 8 9 10 IG 14 13 12 11 10 09

Books in the Animal Homes series include: In a Cave In a Tree In the Water On the Ground Under the Ground

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HOMES

Lesson 1 Animal Homes Minibook

Purpose: Students will create their own nonfiction books about animal homes.

Read (student, small group) Read books from the Animal Homes series. What animals lived in each kind of home? What are some other animals that might live in each kind of home? Model (teacher) Read the minibook aloud to the class. Talk about animals that may fit in each blank. For the last page, brainstorm types of human dwellings. Demonstrate how to complete the minibook. 1. Show students where to write their names and the book title on the cover. Explain that they should also decorate the book cover. 2. Fill in the blanks with an animal that lives in each type of home. 3. Show students where to fill in the type of home they live in. 4. Show students where to draw a picture of each animal in its home, as well as the student in his or her own home. Practice (student) Students complete minibooks. Students may use invented spelling or copy the words from books in the Animal Homes series. Discuss (class) How is your home like an animals home? How is it different? Evaluate (teacher) Check that students have completed their minibook pp. 810 correctly.

Materials Animal Homes series minibook template pp. 810

pencils colored pencils stapler

Objectives Recall information from Animal Homes books. Identify animals that live in different homes. Classify animals by where they live. Describe animals that live in different homes. Create a book about animal homes. Compare a human home to an animal home. Activity Procedures Prepare (teacher) Copy the minibook template pp. 89 back-to-back for each student. Copy the minibook template p. 10 for each student. Assemble the student books. Fold pp. 89 on the dotted line. Fold p. 10 on dotted line so the printed side is on the inside. Place p. 10 on top of pp. 89 and staple in the fold. If the book is assembled correctly, the cover should be blank and page numbers will be sequential. Pretest (class) Ask students where they have seen animals. What kinds of homes did the animals have?

TEACHING

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Lesson 2 Home Sweet Home

Purpose: Students will write a story about an animal at home.

Discuss (teacher, class) If you could be any animal, which would you be? What type of home does that animal live in? What is that home like? What are some things an animal does in its home? Use student answers to generate a list on the board. Model (teacher) Explain how to write a story about being an animal in its home. Demonstrate how to use Writing Words p. 14 to help spell words. Have students draw a picture of the story. Practice (students) Write and illustrate a story about being an animal in its home. Discuss (teacher, students) Share stories in class. How is the animal home the same as or different from your real home? Evaluate (teacher) Read student stories. Check for use of rebus writing sheet. Check for invented spelling and other emerging writing skills. Assess students retelling skills as they share their stories with the class. Extension (teacher, students) Read Green Wilma by Tedd Arnold (Penguin, 1993). This is a humorous story about a girl who dreams about living like a frog. Students will love the twist ending.

Materials Animal Homes books writing paper p. 13 Writing Words p. 14

pencils crayons chalk chalkboard

Objectives Recall animal homes. Describe which animals live in each type of home. Illustrate an animal in its home. Imagine being an animal in its home. Compose a story. Compare how animal homes are similar to and different from human homes. Activity Procedures Prepare (teacher) Copy writing paper p. 13 for each student. You may want extra for students who want to write longer stories. Copy one Writing Words p. 14 for each student or pair of students. Pretest (teacher, students) Where do animals live? Read (teacher, students) Read Animal Homes books.

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Activity Ideas
Use in the classroom after reading books from the Animal Homes series.

Art
Title: Animal Crackers Objective: Students will draw animal homes. Materials: animal crackers, construction paper, glue, crayons, pencils Description: Each student will receive an animal cracker. The students will draw a picture of where the animal lives. Once the picture is finished, place the animal in its home by gluing the cracker to the picture. To extend the activity, give each child a picture of themselves (school picture or self-drawn) to place in a drawing of their favorite animal or human home.

Bulletin Board
Title: Theres No Place Like Home. Materials: chart paper cut to cover the bulletin board, markers, crayons, bulletin board/wall Description: As a class, discuss why a home is important for animals and people (eg. shelter from rain, a place to keep their belongings, etc.). Write these ideas on a piece of chart paper. Place this list in the center of a bulletin board. Break students into groups and have each group create one of the main animal or human homes (water, underground, cave, tree, above ground, house and apartment) on a piece of chart paper. Encourage groups to make their drawing fill the paper. Post the finished illustrations around the list of home features.

Critical Thinking/Questioning
Knowledge: List places animals can live. Comprehension: Describe where animals live. Application: Draw a picture of an animal in its home. Analysis: Discuss why animals live in different kinds of homes. Synthesis: Predict the outcome of destroying a type of animal home through deforestation, water pollution, urban sprawl, etc. Evaluation: Explain why people should protect the environment. Give examples of what they can do.

Large Motor
Title: Animal Movements Objective: Students will identify and demonstrate ways animals move in their habitats. Materials: chalk, chalkboard Description: After reading the Animal Homes books, make a list of the different ways animals move in their homes. You may want to discuss each movement while creating your list. Develop vocabulary by encouraging synonym use. Lastly, call out the words and have students demonstrate the movement. Examples: climb, hop, walk, slither, crawl, leap challenge students imaginations with swim and fly. To extend the activity, have students pretend to be animals in their habitats. Students can use animal noises or pretend to speak like an animal.

Math
Title: Critter Counting Objective: Students will count pictures. Materials: Critter Counting p. 12, pencils, crayons Description: As a whole group, identify the animal homes found on Critter Counting p. 12. Students then count the number of animals in each kind of home and write the numbers in the blanks. Have the students color the sheet when they are done.

TEACHING

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HOMES

Music
Title: Animal Homes Song Objective: Students group animals by the kind of homes they live in. Materials: Chart paper with song lyrics. Description: Sung to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat Animals can live in trees. Which ones can you name? Animals can live on ground. Which ones can you name? Birds and chipmunks, monkeys too Toads, elephants, horses, and deer Squirrels and frogs and bugs Turkeys and kangaroos Animals can live in caves. Which ones can you name? Animals live underground. Which ones can you name? Bats and spiders, bears and birds Worms, prairie dogs, and lots of ants Crickets and crayfish Crabs and mice and foxes

Reading Incentive
Title: Were Bananas about Books! Materials: 1 monkey template p. 16, 1 banana template p. 15 for every two students per week, construction paper, markers Description: Create a large tree on classroom wall, door, or bulletin board. Decide how many books the class will need to read/explore to move the monkey up the tree. Mark the increments on the tree. Cut, color, and laminate the monkey. Tape the monkey to the bottom of the tree. Have students keep track of books read/shared at home on their bananas. Collect the completed bananas weekly, calculate the total number of books read, and mark the progress by moving the monkey up the tree. Tape each banana to the treetop. When the goal is reached, celebrate with a banana (banana split, muffins, etc.) or monkey-themed (a new monkey book for the classroom, monkey bookmarks, etc.) treat.

Science
Title: Home Hunting Objective: Students will find animal homes. Materials: Home Hunting p. 11, crayons or pencils Description: Discuss as a class the types of animal homes that can be found in your community. Take students outside the school building or to a park. Try to find each kind of animal home pictured on Home Hunting p. 11. Draw an X on each picture when that home is found.

Social Studies
Title: Moving Day Objective: Students will discuss reasons why animals sometimes have to leave their homes. Materials: chart paper, marker, pictures of natural and human-made changes to environments (cutting down trees, forest fire, building a new neighborhood, etc.) Description: As a large group, discuss why an animal might have to leave its home. List the reasons on the chart paper. An extension of this activity would be to create a chart and identify the reasons as natural or human. Discuss how and why people should be very careful when changing the environment. Possible reasons an animal may leave its home: home is gone (human or natural disaster removes it), a young animal grows up and leaves to find its own home, food sources or water sources disappear (natural or human cause), more predators have moved into the area, etc.

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Additional Resources
BOOKS Galko, Francine. Cave Animals. New York: Heinemann, 2003. Readers will learn how cave animals live and how people are learning to protect this habitat. This title is one of the Animals in their Habitats series. Ganeri, Anita. Animal Homes. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publications, 2004. Animal homes provide shelter and storage. Readers will explore homes such as a birds nest, a beavers lodge, and a termites mound. James, Diana. Animal Homes. New York: Two-Can Publishers, 2000. Close-up photographs and simple vocabulary illustrate how animals live, eat, and tend their young. A short quiz is included. Kalman, Bobbie. Animal Homes. Toronto, Canada: Crabtree Publishing Company, 1994. Explore how different creatures find homes. Illustrated cross-sections show inside a number of animal homes. Maze, Stephanie, ed. Peaceful Moments in the Wild: Animals and Their Homes. Potomac, MD: Moonstone Press, 2002. This book introduces young children to the diversity of animal habitats around the world. It contains photos taken by professional wildlife photographers. Sharp, Zoe. In the Tree. Washington D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2002. This book explains how a tree is a home for many different animals. Wilkes, Angela. Animal Homes. Boston: Kingfisher, 2003. Animal Homes introduces various places that animals call home. Readers will learn how to locate different animal homes.

WEBSITES Animal Homes http://www.suelebeau.com/animalhomes.htm Students can view animals that live in various types of homes. Kidport Reference Library: Animal Homes http://www.kidport.com/RefLib/Science/Animal Homes/AnimalHomes.htm Children can explore the different kinds of homes in which animals live. Peep and the Big Wide World: House Hunt http://peepandthebigwideworld.com/games/ househunt.html Students will enjoy playing this online concentration game in which they must match animals to their homes. Smithsonian National Zoological Park: Just For Kids http://nationalzoo.si.edu/audiences/kids Visitors to this site can solve puzzles, take a virtual tour, and learn about animals. There is also a page for educators with activity sheets and guides.

A __________________ lives in a tree.

6
8

A __________________ lives in a cave.

Teaching Animal Homes

A __________________ lives
4

A __________________ lives in the water.

5
9
Teaching Animal Homes

under the ground.

A __________________ lives on the ground.

10

I live in a __________________.
2
Teaching Animal Homes

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Name

Home Hunting nest in a tree hole in the ground pond

web

cave

stream

ant hill

hive

hole in a tree

Teaching Animal Homes

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Name

Critter Counting

_______ bears

_______ birds

_______ deer

_______ turtles
Teaching Animal Homes

_______ prairie dogs

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by

Teaching Animal Homes

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Writing Words

tree

cave

under

ground

water

food

nest

web

hole

pond

Teaching Animal Homes

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Teaching Animal Homes

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Teaching Animal Homes