Lesson MINI

LESSON MINI

Animal Homes in the Desert

Grade:

K-2

Topic:

Animals

Unit:

Animal Habitats

Overview

In this lesson mini, students learn about desert habitats and some of the animals that live in them, focusing on the specific traits that help these animals survive. Students also develop their vocabulary and observational skills as they read articles, examine images, and engage in discussions and hands-on activities related to the study of desert habitats and animals.

Ideas for Implementation

Science

Literacy

Library media

Learning centers

Intervention or enrichment

Interdisciplinary collaboration

Key Vocabulary & Definitions

adaptation (noun): a body part or behavior of an animal or plant that helps it survive in a particular place or situation

cactus (noun): a plant that lives in dry regions and has scales or spines instead of leaves

deserte (noun): an area of very dry land that gets little rain

coyote (noun): a furry four-legged animal related to dogs and wolves

dry (adjective): having no or very little water

fenec (noun): a small desert fox with large ears that lives in Africa

habitat (noun): the place or type of place where a plant or an animal naturally or normally lives or grows

jackrabbit (noun): an animal similar to a rabbit but with very long ears and long back legs

hooves (noun): the hard coverings of the toes of some animals, such as camels

hump (noun): a lump or rounded bulge on the back of an animal, such as a camel

lizard (noun): a scaly animal, usually one with four legs

prickly (noun): full of or covered with many hard, sharp points

sand dune (noun): a hill of sand that is shaped by the wind

snake (noun): a long, scaly animal with no legs

yucca (noun): a type of plant found in dry regions that grows long, stiff, pointed leaves and a long stalk with white flowers

Authentic Learning Extensions

Authentic learning opportunities for studying animals of the desert involve real-world experiences and practical applications that help students understand animal adaptations and desert conditions meaningfully. Here are some examples:

Desert Animals Research: Encourage students to research desert habitats and animals by going to their local libraries and finding appropriate books. This allows students to connect with local establishments and begin developing research skills.

Desert Role-Play: Provide students with the opportunity for imaginative play with sand tables and props such as rocks, desert animal figurines, and models of desert plants such as cactuses and yucca. This allows students to develop their creativity, connect with new learnings, and integrate them into free play.

Desert Treasure Hunt: Set up a treasure hunt for students at school, providing them with a map and clues that lead to each destination. Create a treasure reward at the end that aligns with the desert theme. This collaborative activity fosters teamwork and builds classroom community.

Text-to-Text Connection: Introduce a read-aloud of fictional stories set in the desert, and encourage students to make connections between the stories and the informational texts used in these activities. This develops students’ critical thinking skills and increases their reading comprehension.

Water Preservation: Invite students to imagine a world with little water, like the desert. First, ask them to observe and record in a sketch pad how much water they use at home. Then invite them to think about how they can save water.

Choose Activity

LESSON MINI

Animal Homes in the Desert

Activity

1:

Desert Discovery

By the end of the activity, students will be able to use descriptive language and vocabulary words to discuss the main characteristics of desert habitats.

30-40

Minutes

Materials and Resources

Materials

Images of deserts

Large index cards (5–10 cards per group)

Whiteboard and display

Writing and drawing utensils

Resources

Implementation

Prepare for the Activity: Cut out and prepare the Desert Memory Game for each group.

Tell students that today they will learn about desert habitats by reading an article, filling out a graphic organizer, and playing a memory game.

Introduce or review with students the concept of a habitat: the place or type of place where an animal or a plant naturally or normally lives or grows.

Explain to students that during this activity they will explore different aspects of desert habitats, including their characteristics, the plants and animals that live there, and how these organisms adapt to survive in desert environments.

Display the K-W-L graphic organizer, and share with students that it will help them break down information by what they already know, what they wonder about, and what they learned after completing today’s activity.

Begin by asking students to share what they know about deserts. Scribe what they share on the organizer in the K column. Then invite students to think about what they would like to learn about deserts, and record their ideas in the W column of the organizer.

To further prompt students’ curiosity, show images of different deserts using Britannica School, ImageQuest Jr., or another royalty-free resource, including different deserts, such as the Gobi, Sahara, Sonoran, Mojave, and Atacama deserts. Ask students to describe what they see and what they wonder about as they observe different images. Scribe any additional ideas in the K-W-L graphic organizer.

Transition to the reading activity by explaining that students will now read an article about deserts. Display the Desert article, and read it aloud to the whole class. Stop at the end of each section to check comprehension by asking questions such as the following:

What are deserts like?

How are deserts the same? How are they different?

What is an example of a cold desert? What is an example of a hot desert?

What plants or animals can you find in the desert?

How do different animals and plants survive in the desert?

Divide students into small groups, and give each group multiple large index cards. Direct them to draw and label and/or write simple sentences about what they learned about the desert from the Britannica article.

Ask each group to share with the whole class information they recorded on one or two cards. Scribe their learnings in the L column of the K-W-L organizer.

Introduce the Desert Memory Game, explaining the rules (see step 11) and distributing the materials. Invite students to play in small groups to practice key vocabulary words found in the text.

The rules of the game are as follows:

Mix up the cards, and lay them face down on a playing surface.

Player 1 turns over two cards. If the cards match, the player keeps them.

A player’s turn lasts until no match is made. Then the nonmatching cards are turned over in the same place, and the next player takes a turn.

Play continues until all cards have been matched.

Wrap up with a whole-class reflection about the key characteristics of desert habitats and some plants and animals that live in deserts. Encourage students to share their most interesting discoveries.

Differentiation and Variations

Listening Comprehension: After reading the article as a whole class, invite students to listen to it in their table groups using the Read Aloud feature. This repetition of information encourages students to absorb learning and offers early readers an auditory option for acquiring new information.

Desert Discovery Cards: Provide index cards with guiding questions and visual aids to support emergent readers and writers. Perhaps include the following guiding questions:

What animals live in the desert?

What plants can you find in the desert?

What are deserts like?

What is a cold desert? What is a hot desert?

Writing Practice: Ask students to write sentences using the key words from the memory game. This exercise supports students’ learning because it helps them internalize new vocabulary and also gives them the opportunity to practice it in context. Example key words: dry, hot, cold, cactuses, yucca, camel, coyote, lizard, sand dunes, little rain.

Imaginative Play: Offer students the opportunity to play with a sand table or in a sandbox and participate in imaginative play scenarios that represent different desert habitats. This supports students because it provides them with hands-on learning opportunities that foster their creativity and showcase the tangible characteristics of deserts.

Devices: Invite students to complete their index cards using digital resources. Consider using the Create section of Britannica Fundamentals! as a sketch tool. Also consider providing audio instructions for students to refer to in their small groups to encourage collaborative and autonomous learning experiences. This supports students’ learning because it helps them build their technology skills and develop strong teamwork.

Collaborative Teaching

One Teaching, One Assisting: For collaborative teaching and learning environments, this learning activity is well suited to a One Teaching, One Assisting strategy. In this model, one teacher leads the activity while the other circulates, assisting individual students as needed. This ensures that when students encounter difficulties, they receive immediate help in the form of personalized support and answers to their questions. By addressing students’ unique needs and keeping them on track, this approach enhances individual learning experiences and fosters a supportive classroom environment. Studies indicate that immediate feedback and individualized attention can significantly enhance student understanding and retention of material.

Activity Introduction: The lead teacher introduces students to the topic and the K-W-L graphic organizer and leads the discussion on desert habitats. The assisting teacher circulates the room and assists students in formulating their thoughts and questions to effectively participate in the class discussion.

Reading Activity: The lead teacher reads the Desert article aloud and asks guiding questions, while the assisting teacher circulates the room to ensure students understand the key ideas presented. In addition, the assisting teacher takes notes on students’ ability and/or willingness to participate and respond to questions accurately.

Group Activity: Both teachers help organize students into small groups and complete their observation cards. One teacher gives instructions, while the other observes how students follow commands.

Memory Game: The lead teacher explains how to play the Memory Game and reviews the key concepts learned in the activity, while the assisting teacher assists students in playing the game appropriately.

Activity Wrap-Up: The lead teacher leads the wrap-up discussion, while the assisting teacher offers support and encourages participation.

Animal Homes in the Desert

Activity

2:

Cool Camel Adaptations

By the end of the activity, students will be able to describe specific traits of camels and explain how these traits help camels live in their desert habitat.

30-40

Minutes

Materials and Resources

Materials

Images of camels in the desert

Whiteboard and display

Writing utensils

Resources

Implementation

Tell students that today they will learn about camels, a kind of animal that lives in deserts. They will find out how camels survive in their dry desert habitats. Explain that desert animals such as camels have special features, or adaptations, that help them live in very dry conditions.

Display the Bubble Web graphic organizer, and ask students to share what they know about camels. Scribe their responses on the displayed organizer.

Show images of camels in the desert using Britannica School, ImageQuest Jr., or another royalty-free resource, and invite students to describe camel traits that they observe. Add students’ observations to the bubble map. Also, remind students that camel traits are the characteristics that camels have, such as their body parts, color, shape, and size.

Display the Camel article, and read it aloud to the whole class. At the end of each section, stop and ask questions such as the following to check for comprehension:

What do camels look like?

What do camels use their humps for?

What helps camels walk in the sand?

Why do camels have bushy eyebrows and long eyelashes?

Why do camels have big, tough lips?

Before moving to the next independent activity, review the special features that help camels live in the desert. For example, camels have

bushy eyebrows and long eyelashes to protect their eyes from the sand and sun,

humps for storing fat and energy for when food in the desert is scarce,

hooves on their toes to help them walk on the sand,

big, tough lips to help them eat prickly desert plants, and

the ability to walk far and long with little food or water.

Divide students into pairs, and provide each pair with Camel Adaptations Match-Up. Invite students to complete the match-up exercise, thinking about the adaptations camels have so that they can survive in the desert.

Discuss the answers as a whole class, and scribe them on the bubble map. Answer key: 1. c; 2. e; 3. b; 4. a; 5. d

To wrap up, ask students to reflect on what they have learned and share something new that surprised them about camels.

Differentiation and Variations

Listening Comprehension: To help students further internalize the main ideas from the Camel article, ask them to listen to it again using the Read Aloud feature before completing the match-up activity. Exposing students to the article twice gives them a chance to reinforce new learnings, clear up doubts, and further internalize new information and key vocabulary.

Desert Match-Up: For more guided support, invite students to complete the Camel Adaptations Match-Up orally and as a whole class. This supports students’ learning because it offers a more guided and scaffolded approach to help them internalize the key ideas from the activity.

Writing Practice: Invite students to write fun facts they learned about how camels survive in harsh desert conditions. Tell them to use key vocabulary words from the text, such as hump, desert, dry, hooves, and prickly. Providing students the opportunity to practice their writing skills allows them to use new vocabulary in context.

Camel Adaptations—a Multisensory Exploration: Incorporate hands-on and experiential learning to explore camel adaptations by inviting students to create clay models of camel features, interact with tactile Camel Adaptation Stations that simulate desert conditions, and participate in a guided role-play activity in which they act as camels using their adaptations. These multisensory approaches cater to different learning styles and help reinforce understanding of how camels survive in desert environments.

Collaborative Teaching

Activity Introduction: The lead teacher introduces the activity and presents images of camels, eliciting students’ prior knowledge and observations. The assisting teacher facilitates student engagement and scribes answers on the bubble map.

Reading the Article: While the lead teacher reads the article to the entire class and asks guiding questions, the other provides targeted assistance to help students follow along and respond to the comprehension checks.

Camel Adaptations Activity: The assisting teacher divides students into pairs and distributes materials. The lead teacher explains the activity to students, and then both teachers circulate to provide support. For students who need additional assistance, consider forming a separate guided reading group directed by the assisting teacher, who rereads the Camel article and helps students complete the Camel Adaptations Match-Up in a more guided setting.

Activity Wrap-Up: The lead teacher leads the review and reflection while the assisting teacher scribes answers on the bubble map and provides assistance and support to students as necessary.

Animal Homes in the Desert

Activity

3:

Diversity of Desert Life

By the end of the activity, students will be able to describe coyotes, Gila monsters, and snakes and the specific traits that help them survive in a desert habitat.

30-40

Minutes

Materials and Resources

Materials

Images of snakes, coyotes, and Gila monsters (at least one of each)

Whiteboard and display

Writing utensils

Resources

Implementation

Tell students that today they will learn about different animals that live in the desert, a habitat where there is little water and the temperatures can get very hot or very cold.

Display and read aloud the Desert article to review or introduce the desert habitat and some types of animals that live there. After reading, ask these questions:

What is one way that snakes and lizards survive in the desert? (Answer: They stay underground or under rocks, where it is cooler, during hot days.)

What are other ways that some animals, such as fennecs, survive in the desert? (Answer: They hunt at night, when it is cooler, and they get water from the food they eat, such as bugs, plants, eggs, and small animals.)

Tell students that a Gila monster is a kind of reptile that lives in the desert. Watch the Gila Monsters video as a whole class. After watching the video, ask students to share something they learned about Gila monsters and their traits.

Replay the video, stopping throughout to do comprehension checks. Invite students to raise their hands when they know the answers. Consider asking questions such as these:

How would you describe Gila monsters? (e.g., Gila monsters are large, poisonous lizards)

Where do Gila monsters live? (deserts of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico)

What are Gila monsters’ bodies like? (e.g., heavy, large head, beady scales)

What colors are a Gila monster’s scales, and how does that help it survive in the desert? (black with pink, orange, or yellow; they help it blend in with its desert surroundings)

What do Gila monsters eat? (small mammals, birds, eggs)

What do Gila monsters do in the winter? (they are inactive, living off stored fat)

Divide the class into groups of three or four students, and assign each group a desert animal: coyote, Gila monster, or snake. Provide printed copies of the respective Britannica article (Snake article, Coyote article, or Gila Monster article) to each student in each group. Also provide or display to each group one or more images of their assigned animal in a desert habitat using Britannica School, ImageQuest Jr., or another royalty-free resource.

Instruct students to read their Britannica articles in their small groups. Invite them to think about how their assigned animal’s traits might help it survive in a desert habitat. Ask them to keep in mind what they’ve already learned as they read about their animals.

Have students work in their groups to complete the Diversity of Desert Life handout, highlighting the key features of each desert animal. If their article did not specifically state how the animal’s traits help it live in the desert, tell students to discuss with their groups how their animal’s traits or behaviors match with how they know other desert animals survive.

Ask each group to present to the whole class their answers to the questions on the handout. Guide a discussion on comparing and contrasting the desert animals. Consider asking students guiding questions such as the following:

What do all three animals have in common? How are they different?

Which of the three animals is the biggest? Which one is the smallest?

How does each animal move?

How does each animal survive in the desert?

Play Simon Says to practice acting out different desert animal characteristics and behaviors. Call out different commands such as the following, reminding students to follow the command only if “Simon says” precedes it. If time allows, encourage student volunteers to come up with their own commands and lead the activity.

Hide underground like a Gila monster. / Eat a bird like a Gila monster. / Bury an egg in the sand like a Gila monster.

Sleep like a snake in the winter. / Bite like a snake. / Slither like a snake.

Sleep during the day like a coyote. / Howl like a coyote. / Walk like a coyote.

Wrap up the activity by reflecting on the diversity of desert life and asking students to share something new they learned about desert animals.

Differentiation and Variations

Listening Comprehension: To support students who are not yet reading independently, invite them to listen to the articles in their small groups using the Read Aloud feature. This promotes students’ learning because it allows them to complete the activity autonomously and gives them an alternative route to internalize the new information.

Animal Sorting Cards: Invite students to sort different animal cards based on their habitats. This will help them identify animals that live in the desert versus those that live in other environments. This supports students’ learning because it helps them develop their analytical and comparative skills.

Read-Aloud: Consider displaying and reading aloud the Coyote article, Gila Monster article, and Snake article to the whole class rather than having students read just one of them in their respective groups. Check for reading comprehension by asking guiding questions about animal traits. This supports students’ learning because it broadens their knowledge of desert animals and promotes comparative analysis.

Devices: Provide each group with devices so that they can read their assigned animal articles online. This fosters digital literacy and gives students an opportunity to work collaboratively and integrate technology into their learning experiences.

Collaborative Teaching

Parallel Teaching: For collaborative teaching and learning environments, this learning activity is well suited to a Parallel Teaching strategy. In this model, the class is divided into two groups, and each teacher delivers the same activity simultaneously to their group. This reduces the student-teacher ratio, allowing for more interaction and individualized attention. With smaller groups, students are more likely to participate actively and receive immediate feedback, which fosters a deeper understanding of the content and promotes a more engaging learning experience. Evidence suggests that small-group instruction leads to increased student engagement and improved academic outcomes.

Animal Homes in the Desert

Activity

4:

Minutes

Materials and Resources

Materials

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Resources

Implementation

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Differentiation and Variations

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Collaborative Teaching

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Animal Homes in the Desert

Activity

5:

Minutes

Materials and Resources

Materials

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Resources

Implementation

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Differentiation and Variations

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Collaborative Teaching

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