• Natural items such as pinecones, leaves, moss, seeds, twigs, and galls
• A large cloth

• Clear a floor space where the group can sit in a circle.

Place the natural items you have gathered on a cloth on the floor or a low table. Say in these words or your own:

Here are some things that are found in a habitat. A habitat is the place where animals or plants are normally found.

As you hold the items up, ask questions such as these:

• What kind of habitat might this come from?
• Does it come from a pond habitat? A forest habitat? How about a field habitat? Could it come from a backyard? Is a backyard a habitat? Whose habitat could a backyard be?
• What animal might use this? Could an animal use it for food or for shelter? For example, many birds and squirrels eat pinecones, nuts, seeds, or berries; many birds might use thistles, twigs, leaves, moss or fur for nest building.

If you have galls to show, explain that they are a very tiny habitat, or micro-habitat. Galls are parts of a plant-usually a stem or leaf-where a wasp, fly, or other insects lays its eggs. The bulge in the plant part is from swelling after the wasp slits the stem or leaf and inserts its eggs. The gall is a little nest for the eggs and has all the food, shelter, water and space that the hatchling insects or larvae need for the first stage of their lives.