Animal Homes

Six animals on the left, six homes on the right, and a dot beside each for a line. This kindergarten page is about the homes animals make, not the wide places they live. On the sheet shown the animals are an ant, a rabbit, a spider, a bee, a bird and a beaver, and the homes are drawn as outlines: a spider web between two sticks, a beaver lodge of piled sticks in the water, a nest with three eggs on a branch, a burrow tunnel under the grass, a honeycomb inside a hollow tree and an anthill with its tunnels. The child draws a line from each animal to its home.

Young children love that a nest, a web and a burrow are all houses, and that each animal builds its own. The homes are drawn in section, so the child can see inside the burrow and the anthill, which makes them easier to tell apart. None of the animals sits across from its own home. Nest, hive, web and burrow are words children meet in picture books; lodge will be new to most, and the beaver is the one to introduce.

One sheet, six lines. Before handing it out, ask who has seen a spider web or a bird's nest. The page pairs well with a walk around the schoolyard to look for real homes. In the animal habitats family this is the kindergarten entry; the base page moves on to the larger places animals live, like the pond and the rainforest.