Objectives

• To be able to list and describe at least two different types of sea animals.
• To be able to define habitat and give an example.

Vocabulary

Habitat Hermit crab House Plankton Pollution

Shell Skeleton Snail Starfish

Materials

A House for Hermit Crab, by Eric Carle, Saxonville, Mass.: Picture Book Studio, Ltd., 1987.
Newsprint
Construction paper
Glue
Markers
Scissors
Yarn
Large piece of blue paper to represent the ocean

Instructions:

Read A House for Hermit Crab aloud to your students. This story describes a hermit crab that has outgrown his old shell and moves into a new one.  The hermit crab decorates its shell with the various sea creatures it meets during its travel.

After reading the book, discuss the habitats described in the book. Show your students the corresponding pictures that depict how:

• The hermit crab sheds his smaller shells for bigger shells.
• A flock of starfish moved along the sea floor.
• Coral builds hard skeletons that form the coral reefs.
• Snails each had their own shell and lived on a rock on the bottom of the ocean floor.
• Lanternfish darted through the seaweed.
• The hermit crab rearranged pebbles to protect the shell.

List each of the habitats mentioned in the newsprint. Allow each student to choose a sea animal and create the animal and it’s habitat with construction paper, scissors, glue, yarn, and markers. Encourage creativity.

Display student artwork on a large piece of blue paper spread across the classroom wall.

Discussion Questions

• How do the different animals move through the ocean?
• What is a habitat?
• Which sea animal and habitat might Hermit Crab want to use for its next habitat?

Spin Off

1-    Have students write stories about their sea animal and habitat.

2-    Set up an aquarium for hermit crabs.   Have students make observations of the crab behavior.  Make a slit of the different behaviors your students observe and discuss how these behaviors help the crabs survive.

3-    Have students make Sea Creature pop-up books where they write a story then make a three-dimensional pop-up about their Sea Creature and its habitat.  Stories should include the name of the Sea Creature, how and what it eats, where it lives, and an interesting fact about it.

To make the Sea Creature pop-up book fold a 5”x8” index card in half and cut two 1 ¼” slits one inch apart in the center of the folded card.  On the inside of the card above the fold line, draw the Sea Creatures habitat. On the other half draw the ocean floor and write the story.  Fold the card to a 90^o angle.  Press between the slits to push the strip that was notched out forward. Crease the strip to form a right angle with the card.

On a 2 ½” square of white paper, draw and color the Sea Creature; then cut loosely around its form. (it is easier to write the story on folded index cards then draw and color the pictures to fit the story on each page.)  Glue the back of this cutout to the protruding strip of the folded index card.  This creates a three-dimensional ocean scene.

To combine several of these scenes into a booklet, fold each flat.  Then stack them one atop the other.  Glue adjacent cards together.  Fold a 6” wide tag board strip for covers and glue it to the top and bottom index cards.  Lager index cards can be used to achieve bigger books.

This activity is  from the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve Education Office, January 2001.

The North Carolina Coastal Reserve Program, within the Division of Coastal Management, was authorized by the NC General Assembly in 1989 to protect unique coastal sites. The program includes the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve, part of the National Estuarine Research Reserve system, which the Division manages in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the Coastal Zone Management Act.

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