Habitats · Kindergarten
Build a model: who lives where, and why?
Plants and animals live where they can get what they need.
People live where they can get water, food and a home too.
Standard: K-ESS3-1*. Children use a model to show how the needs of different plants and animals (including people) relate to the places they live. For example, deer eat buds and leaves, so they usually live in forests; grasses need sunlight, so they often grow in meadows.
What your child does: explores a model of four places; places eight plants and animals where they can get what they need and hears why; uses the model to explain the deer's choice and to predict what happens to pond animals if the pond dries up; and chooses where a family should build a home.
Talk about it: "Why couldn't a fish live in the desert?" · "What does our neighborhood have that people need?" · "Where do the birds near us find food?"
Try it for real: build a shoebox habitat with your child (sand, a dish of water, moss or grass) and place toy animals where they could get what they need. Ask them to explain each choice.
*Next Generation Science Standards and NGSS are registered trademarks of WestEd. Neither WestEd nor the lead states and partners that developed the Next Generation Science Standards were involved in the production of this product, and do not endorse it.