Animal and habitat teaching ideas for pre-k and a freebie!

O.K. so we all remember those famous dioramas that we made in elementary school were meant to teach us about animals and where they live. While these are cute projects with a purpose they are best suited for elementary students not pre-k. But with curious minds and a natural love for animals it only makes sense to introduce our kiddos to facts about animals and where they live around the world. For pre-k there are so many great easy ways to incorporate animals into our classrooms. I like to make animal masks for each habitat we are working on as well as read the room cards and recording sheets. The kiddos can record the name of the animal by reading it on the other childs mask. My class also enjoys making animals out of construction paper and gluing some facts that I have typed and printed about the animals. I like to try to decorate my room to mimic the habitat we are working on, I have to say I am a huge stuffed animal collector so I have many of the animals needed in beany baby size to help me acomplish this. For the rainforest I make a rainforest scene on my large bulletin board and place rainforest stuffed animals all around the room along with bug catcher nets, bug catcher containers, paper butterflies and magnifying glasses, test tubes and other exploration items. For my Arctic study I lay light blue sheets along the floor as the ice and use paper plates as snowshoes attached with rubber bands to each childs sneakers. You cand do very simple or very elaborate scenes and decor to help your students get interested in your theme. I also like to hang photographs of the animals with their names next to the stuffed animals. I have also used this for a read the room on a lined sheet of paper. This year I decided to step it up a bit and make minbooks and habitat matching centers for my class. The kids love them! They have been having a blast sorting the different animals onto habitat mats and coloring habitat coloring sheets. The pictures below show you what we have been up to in our forest study. We have made our interactive animal facts book and our animal habitats coloring sheet with the animals glued on the side. O These pictures do not show the animal photographs we have been using to learn the fatcs (I just glued the facts to the back of the photo) and the forest animal matching game: I have put all of this together for you in a mega-unit on TpT which includes 11 different habitats with everything you see for the forest for $12.50. I have also listed each habitat seperatly for $3.00. Please click on the pictures below to see this unit on Tpt. I hope your kiddos enjoy this as much as mine have. Link:http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Where-do-animals-live-11-habitats-animals-minibooks-206p Link:http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Animals-In-the-Forest-facts-minibook-craftivity-centers Here is a freebie of the matching center from my habitat unit, enjoy! Link: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Animals-in-the-forest-matching-center-freebie Till next time, Christine