Habitats & Niches

I was excited about this lesson.  On the smart-board I had this picture enlarged, which I got from google somewhere:

I then had a bunch of different pictures of rainforest animals printed out and laminated.  I handed them out to the kids so each kid had one.  We talked about the different parts of the rainforest (canopy, understory, forest floor), and how these create different habitats for animals to live in.  They each took a turn bringing their animal up and taping it onto the smart-board over the place where it probably lives (we had discussions on why it would live there, etc.).  With each animal we also learned what it's niche in this ecosystem was.  It was pretty fun, and it allowed the kids to move a little bit. 

Afterwards we did a worksheet.  I can't take credit for the ideas behind the second page of this worksheet.  I got the ideas from different worksheets that I saw as I surfed the web.  I liked them, and thought they were a good way to help my kids differentiate between the two.  Maybe I'll have them start with the second page and finish with the first. 

To get the worksheet, scroll to the bottom of the page.