Lesson 2

Where are living things found?

Home > Science England > Year 2 Science England > Unit 1 – Living Things and Their Habitats England > Lesson 2 – Where are living things found?

Lesson Plan

Student Pages

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Lesson Plan

Preparation

This lesson’s experiment involves creating a worm habitat where real worms will live. A single habitat could also be made for the whole class to observe, instead of pupils making their own. After the experiment is completed, worms should be returned to the earth or a compost heap.

If undertaking the experiment, collect the following materials: clean glass jars (or plastic drink bottles with the tops cut off), shoe boxes with the lids taped (like a hinged door) and holes poked in its end, soil, sand, leaves, worms, food scraps such as bits of banana skin and lettuce.

Curriculum links

Living things and their habitats

Identify that most living things live in habitats to which they are suited and describe how different habitats provide for the basic needs of different kinds of animals and plants, and how they depend on each other.
Identify and name a variety of plants and animals in their habitats, including micro-habitats.

Suggested teaching strategies

Use the mingle-pair-share technique to encourage pupils to think about the features of the animals on the summary page that make them suited to a particular habitat. To make this more engaging, pupils could move around during the mingle phase as an animal specified by the teacher.

Introduction

Display the digital lesson on your smartboard to introduce habitats.

Showing this with a series of colour pictures showing plants and other living things in different habitats could initiate discussion and guide pupil thinking.

The summary and worksheet should be used together.

Development

Provide pupils with the summary and worksheet to complete. They should use only the animals and habitats mentioned in the summary to answer the questions on the worksheet. They are expected to copy the name labels of the animals to answer Question 1.

Pupils will need to use their general knowledge to answer Question 3.

Some adult assistance may be needed to create the worm habitats using the investigation worksheet.

Differentiation

For less able pupils, discuss each habitat on the worksheet to assist with answering the questions.
As an extension to this lesson, pupils can create a model of an animal in its habitat using items such as toys, blocks or recycled materials.

Conclusion

Discuss the worm investigation as a class: What was the importance of each element included in the habitat?

Assessment

Worksheet answers
1. (a) camel (b) frog (c) scorpion (d) polar bear
2. Teacher check
3. habitats
4. in the water: seaweed, starfish; in a dry place: cactus, lizard
5. Answers will vary slightly but should indicate the following: (a) Polar bears have a thick, warm coat of fur to keep them warm. (b) Monkeys have hands and arms suitable for climbing trees. (c) Frogs have webbed toes to help them swim in water. (d) Camels have a fatty hump that provides food and nourishment when food and water is scarce. (It does not contain water.)

Investigation worksheet answers
1–2. Teacher check
3. (a) The worms should be able to live well in the new habitat as they will have food, and dark, cool conditions. (b) The worms will eat the food and tunnel through the layers. They will deposit worm ‘castings’ to keep the soil moist and healthy. (c) As the worms burrow through the jar, they will mix the soil and the sand.
4. Teacher check