St. Mary of the Assumption School

Animal Habitats

Together as a class we read the book "Let's Take Care of the Earth" by Rozanne Lanczak Williams. We were inspired by the animals in the book and noticed that they all lived in different kinds of habitats. Our class decided to make dioramas about these habitats to help show everyone all the information we learned.
 
We worked in teams of two or three to make our dioramas. Each team chose which habitat they wanted to work on. Everyone used the book we read in class for inspiration as well as picture books from the library about our habitats to help us figure out what things we would need to include in our dioramas. We did sketches of these things first because it's always important to plan it all out on paper! Then we made the animals that would live in our habitats. We painted our animals and the background of the dioramas. Another thing we did was create the landscape and make it 3D. We had "building days" and used some recycled materials to help us make our 3D habitats. Once we finished building, we painted our landscape and added in our animals. We also wrote about our habitats, too.
 
 
Student Writing
 
The Desert There is very little water in the desert. In the desert there are cacti: two tumble weeks and two Palm trees.
-Isabella M. and George
 
The Ocean There are animals like whales, sharks and fish. There is seaweed and rocks at the bottom. The fish are swimming around but the shark is sleeping.
-Devon, Seoyeon, Adriana
 
The Ocean There is seaweed in the ocean a lot of fish. There is a huge humpback whale looking around for food.
-Kate and Matthew
 
The Mountain The mountain is tall and a goat lives there. It is snowing on our mountain because it is winter time.
-Yasmeen and Andre
 
The Mountain is a rocky place. It is so high up it feels like you are in the clouds.
-Leif and Dominic
 
The Swamp We made a swamp. It is very muddy and an alligator lives in our swamp.
-Lauren, Sophia, Daniel
 
The Forest There a lot of trees and caves that make up a forest. The other animals want to hide from the bear.
-Beamlak and Isabella
 
 
Learning Objectives
 
The students will:

  • Interpret and express the habitats in the book "Let's Take Care of the Earth" by Rozanne Lanczak Willams in the form of a diorama.
  • Organize their ideas by sketching on paper and discuss and combine them with their teammate(s).
  • Manipulate recycled materials and construct a 3D landscape habitat.
  • Describe their dioramas and write a sentence about them upon completion.
~K-2 & Miss Meghan