Habitat Hoopla! :)

Hi everyone!

I hope this Monday treated you absolutely wonderful!  I know my kiddos were A++ students today!  They were so well-behaved and we got so much done!  :)

Now, I know I haven't been blogging a ton, but it's because we've been doing so much on one specific topic that I wanted to wait to blog until we were ALL DONE!  We are almost there, but let me update you on what's been happening in 2nd grade (as far as Science goes!)  Here goes my first Science post since the beginning of the year, because that is exactly how long we've been studying this awesome, exciting, fun to teach topic!

Can you say.....HABITATS?!?!?!

Since the beginning of the year, we have been studying habitats.  What are habitats? What is their purpose? Where are they located? All of these puzzling questions that your 2nd graders should easily be able to answer by now! :)

We started our unit on habitats with talking about the basics, what animals need to live in their habitats, different kinds of weather, etc.  Then, we took time to dig into each habitat in our curriculum!

We started off with the Woodland Forest, talking alot about how Herry Wood's is a "woodland" forest that is close to us!  Then, we made the awesome owl flip books for the students to share what they learned throughout the Woodland Forest study time!

Woodland Forest Owl Flipbooks! :)

We then moved on to the other type of forest....a Tropical Rainforest! :)  Tropical rainforests are one of my  most favorite habitats to teach.  I love tropical rainforests because I think of warm weather, but then I also think about all the rain which sometimes changed my mind!  The students knew quite a bit about rainforests, but there is always room to learn more!  Then, the students had time to research the different layers of the rainforest (there are 4) and the animals that live in each layer.  Check out the group projects they completed! :)

Layers of the Rainforest and the animals that live in them! :)

Side note: The students used a WebQuest to complete this project.  A WebQuest is an online learning site that helps the students navigate on the Internet to find out more information about a specific topic.  This is how the students found out what animals lived in each rainforest layer.  Check out the WebQuest at this link: http://mrsgebauer.com/rainforestweb/WebQuest.htm

After the tropical rainforest, we moved onto deserts.  Did you know there is such thing as a "hot desert" and a "cold desert?"  I've never heard of a cold desert, so this was a learning opportunity for myself as well.  We started with the typical "hot desert."  One that most of us know quite well.  When you think desert, you think hot, no rain, dry, sand, and cactuses!  Trust me, your children thought the same thing! :) Deserts was a fun habitat to teach because the students were so knowledgeable about this topic coming in!  We then completed a fun project where the students got to make their handprint into a camel, and that camel they had to draw in a desert habitat!  Now, since we can't just do art in 2nd grade, I then made them write about what they learned about the desert through the different things we read and studied!  Check out the artwork below! ;)

Desert Habitat artwork! :)

We then moved onto the "cold desert" which is also known as the Arctic Desert.  I had no idea they called the Arctic a cold desert!  So neat!  We didn't get to spend alot of time on this habitat because of time reasons, but I found an AWESOME Science experiment that helped students realize the importance of blubber on animals to stay warm!  Check out the pictures below to see the steps in our experiment!

Step 1: Make predictions.
Students had to make a prediction how their hand would feel in bare ice vs.
 their hand covered in Crisco and then put into ice! :)

Step 2:  Experience ice cold water with no "blubber" (aka Crisco) around your hand! :)

Step 3: Experience the ice cold water with Crisco around your hand! :)

Conclusion from the "Blubber Experiment":  Animals need blubber to keep them warm in this cold, freezing habitat!  The students absolutely LOVED this science experiment and it was so EASY to complete!  Awesome! :)

Overall, the past month and a half have been SO MUCH FUN in Science.  Seriously though, habitats is such a fun unit to teach and myself and the other 2nd grade teacher are like, "Are we really only through the first unit of Science?"  But then we look at each other and just laugh because we both love habitats so much!  We aren't completely finished with habitats as we still have one of my most favorite habitats to study....the OCEAN!  We just started studying the ocean habitat today and I'm so excited for this week!  Stay tuned to see what my students get to experience when traveling through the ocean!

Thank you all for listening, and until next time...stay safe. <3