Year 2

Science Home-Learning Pack: Living Things and Their

Habitats

Name:__________________

Living, Dead or Never Alive? What things do we do that let us know we’re alive?

Talk about the seven life processes and the mnemonic ‘Mrs Gren’. Can you think of examples of how these processes appear in plants and animals?

All living things do certain things to stay alive. These are called life processes. Animals, including humans, do these things. Plants do too, although they do them in different ways. We can remember these things by thinking about MRS GREN.

Movement:

• A hare runs to escape from danger. • A sunflower moves to turn its face towards the sun.

Respiration:

• Mammals breathe through their mouths and noses. • Plants take in and give out gases through their leaves.

Sensitivity:

• Animals use their senses to see, hear, taste, touch and smell the world around them.

• Plants can also detect changes in the environment. A mimosa plant curls up when you touch it.

Growth:

• An ocean mola starts life as an egg not much bigger than a full stop. It will grow to weigh about 1,000kg – this is the same as a large bull.

• Bamboo can grow up to 3cm every hour.

Reproduction:

• A wolf spider has her babies on her back. • Each seed contains a tiny miniature plant ready to grow.

Excretion:

• How do you get rid of waste products from your body? • Left over gases and water leave plants through their leaves.

Nutrition:

• Some animals eat plants, and some eat other animals. Bears are an example of an animal that eats both, like people!

• Green plants make their own food using the energy from the sun.

Living or Not Living?

Living things have life processes. They need food, water and air to stay alive. They can sense changes in the environment. They can move, grow and reproduce.

Non-living things can be things that were once living or part of a living thing, or they can be things that have never been alive. They do not need food, water or air. They cannot reproduce.

Task: Cut out the cards below. Get two hoops or create two groups and label them ‘Living’ and ‘Non-Living’. Think about whether the item on the card does or does not demonstrate the life processes. Then sort the cards into the groups. Try to give a reason for each of your choices. You might like to colour-in the cards.

Dead or Never Alive?

Many non-living things have never been alive but some of them were once part of a living plant or an animal.

Which of these non-living things are dead, and which were never alive? It might help you to think about what the thing is made from.

Task: Cut out the next set of cards below. Get two hoops or create two groups and label them ‘Dead’ and ‘Never Alive’. Think about the origin of each item. Then sort the cards into the groups. Try to give a reason for each of your choices. You might like to colour-in the cards.

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Task: Can you remember all of the life processes? Use this Twinkl word search to help you remember them.

Local Habitats Our Habitat

What do humans need to stay alive? (Revisit the seven life processes and discuss how humans and all other living things need certain conditions to stay alive and healthy. Discuss how humans have adapted their habitats so that they meet the right conditions to keep us heathy and safe.)

Can you remember what each of these letters stand for?

M

R

S

G

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E

N

To stay alive and healthy, you and all other living things need certain conditions that let them carry out the seven life processes.

• Living things need food and water • Living things need space to move, grow and have young • Living things need air or oxygen • Living things need shelter and safety

A habitat is a place where animals and plants live, were they can find everything they need to stay alive. A habitat can be as big as an ocean or as small as a rock. What is your habitat? Where do you live? What living things live and grow there? How does your habitat keep you safe and sheltered? How does your habitat provide food and water? How does your habitat provide space for you to move and grow?

Humans are unique because we can make big changes to our habitats to make sure we have everything we need. How do humans change their habitats?

We build roads and vehicles so we can travel everywhere we need to safely and quickly.

We pipe fresh, clean, safe water into our homes to use for drinking, cooking and washing.

We grow plants for food and farm animals for meat and dairy products. We even have pets to keep us company.

We build houses with heating to protect us from cold weather, or with air conditioning to protect us from the heat.

British Habitats

Plants and animals can’t make big changes to their habitats like humans can. They rely on the environment around them to provide them with everything they need.

This means they have to live somewhere that has the right conditions to help them stay alive and well.

Because different places have different conditions, the plants and animals that live there are different too.

Urban Habitats

Most people in Britain live in an urban habitat. Urban habitats are areas with lots of buildings for people to live and work in.

Some of the living things in urban habitats are here because people have put them there. This includes trees, hedges and plants in parks and gardens, and our pets. There are also many living things that grow wild in urban habitats. These plants and animals have found ways to survive alongside all the people that live nearby.

Flowering plants such as nettles, daisies, dandelions and buttercups grow in parks, gardens and hedges. They even grow in abandoned buildings and through cracks in concrete. Many insects, slugs and snails live among the plants.

Some animals, such as squirrels and garden birds, get their food from the trees and hedges that grow in cities. Other animals like foxes, pigeons and rats are able to live in cities because they get most of their food from the waste that people leave behind.

Woodland Habitats

In a woodland habitat there are lots of trees that grow close together. Common trees that grow here include English oak, ash, beech, hawthorn and birch.

Most British woodlands are deciduous, which means the leaves fall off the trees in winter. The fallen leaves provide food and shelter for many creatures and rot into the soil, making it rich and full of nutrients.

As well as the fallen leaves, there are shrubs, flowers and grasses beneath the trees. These provide a home for many insects and invertebrates like worms, slugs and snails.

The fruit and seeds of the trees, and the small creatures that live among the leaves, provide food for many birds and small mammals such as bats, mice, squirrels, stoats and weasels.

Bigger mammals such as badgers, foxes and deer are common in woodland. There are also beavers, otters, and wild boar, though these animals are less common.

Pond Habitats

A pond is a still body of fresh water. Some ponds are man-made and appear in parks and gardens; others are natural dips and hollows in the land that have filled up with water.

Lots of plants and animals live in the water in ponds, and many more live nearby. Some plants like water lilies, hornwort and duckweed live in the water. Other plants like irises and marsh marigolds grow in the damp soil near the pond’s edge.

These plants provide food and shelter for worms, slugs, snails, and insects like damselflies, dragonflies, mayflies and water beetles. Amphibians like frogs, toads and newts eat the small creatures, and in turn, these are eaten by mammals like bats and water voles.

Many birds live near the water, including ducks, moorhens and kingfishers.

Coastal Habitats

Because Britain is made up of islands it has a lot of coastal habitats. These are places where the land meets the sea. Some of these habitats are sandy, some are marshy, and some are high, rocky cliffs.

The plants here have adapted to grow in salty, windy conditions. These include samphire, juniper, sea kale, glasswort and marram grass.

Many of the creatures that live in coastal areas survive in rock pools left by the tides, like barnacles, mussels, crabs and starfish.

Wading birds such as oystercatchers, plovers and sandpipers feed on these creatures, while seabirds like seagulls, kittiwakes, gannets and skuas mainly eat fish from the sea.

Dolphins, porpoises and even whales can be seen in the waters around the coast. Seals and otters spend most of their lives in the sea but come to the land to rest and care for their babies.

Living, Dead or Never Alive?

Think about your work in the last lesson. We use the life processes (MRS GREN) to tell if something is living, dead or never alive.

If a thing is alive, it will do each of these life processes. If the thing doesn’t do these processes, but did at some point in the past, it is dead. If something has never done these 7 life processes, it has never been alive.

What can you see that is living, dead and that has never been alive?

Our Local Habitat

Visit a local habitat e.g. your garden or a local park. With a grown up, look around your local habitat and list all the things that are living, dead or have never been alive.

Look closely into cracks and crevices. If you have a magnifying glass at home, it would be great to use it for this. Look closely at fallen leaves and plant debris, to rocks and stones and what is beneath them.

Living Dead Never Alive

Task: Use the space below to draw a map of your local habitat (garden or park). Draw and label plants, trees and animal homes. You could also draw the animals that live there.

Microhabitats You have been using this pack to learn about the different habitats where living things make their homes. Some of these habitats are very big, like a woodland. Some habitats are very small – we call these microhabitats. A large habitat contains many microhabitats. A microhabitat can be as small as a fallen branch or the space under a stone.

What microhabitats did you find in your local habitat?

Did you find any of these microhabitats? (Tick the ones you found)

Under stones and rocks In short grass Inside rotting wood Under fallen leaves In and on the soil In tall grass and flowers

A minibeast is a small creature like an insect, a worm or a spider. Many different minibeasts live in many different microhabitats.

They are suited to live in that microhabitat as they can find the food, water and shelter they need.

Minibeasts help to keep the microhabitat healthy.

Caterpillar

Caterpillars like to live on top of and underneath leaves.

This is so they can use their camouflage and blend into the leaf.

This helps to protect them so that they are not easily seen by predators.

Ants

Ants mostly live underground in big families.

There are lots of insects to eat underground.

Ants don’t have ears. Ants hear by feeling vibrations in the ground through their feet.

Worms

Worms like to live anywhere there is soil.

They like to eat dead leaf matter and they need the soil to be moist.

Worms help to keep soil healthy by digging tunnels that let air and water in.

Spider

Spiders can live in just about any habitat.

When the weather gets colder they have to find shelter.

Their body colours help them to blend in and they build webs to catch insects to eat.

Ladybirds

During the summer, ladybirds like to live in shrubs, branches and flowers.

When the weather gets cold they hide in tree stumps, under rocks and under leaves.

Ladybirds huddle together to keep warm and hibernate until spring.

Which minibeast did you see in your local habitat?

Task: Investigate the question: Do all minibeasts like living in the same microhabitat?

You’re going to do this by finding minibeast in your local environment (garden or park) and count the different minibeasts you find there. Use the map you made to help you. Look closely at the different microhabitats carefully and write a sentence to describe what it is like.

Find 2 different microhabitats. Give them a name, draw them and write a sentence to say what the habitat is like, using the word bank to help you.

Word Bank

dry

dusty

rocky

damp

muddy

woody

leafy

hard

soft

springy

light

dark

big

small

Next you need to look very closely at each microhabitat and count up each kind of minibeast that you find there. Try using a tally chart – like we did in Maths.

Now make a pictogram to show the number of minibeasts in one of the two microhabitats that you surveyed. You could use a picture of each bug to represent one or more than one minibeast. You could make a pictogram for each microhabitat by printing 2 copies of this template.

Cut and stick as many of these pictures as you need to complete your pictogram.

Look closely at your pictograms and talk about the following questions.

1. What were your two microhabitats like?

2. Look closely at both pictograms.

3. Did your two habitats have different kinds of minibeast?

4. Can you suggest why?

Extra Task: Make your own bug hotel! Create your own microhabitat to encourage minibeasts into your garden. We’d love to see some photos of this in school.

World Habitats Do you remember how plants and animals rely on the environment around them to provide them with everything they need?

This means they have to live somewhere that has the right conditions to help them stay alive and well.

Because different places around the world have different conditions, the plants and animals that live there are different too.

These different animals and plants all have special ways to survive in their special habitats.

In this part of the pack, you will find out about some of the different habitats around the world, and some of the different plants and animals that live there.

You will find out about:

Rainforest Habitats

Ocean Habitats

Arctic Habitats

Desert Habitats

Animals of the Ocean

Animals of the Arctic

Animals of the Rainforest

Animals of the Desert

Task: You are going to do some research about habitats. Researching means finding out more information about something you are interested in. How can we find more information?

You can read about it in an information book. You can find out about it by looking it up on the internet. You can ask questions of someone who knows more information about the topic.

This section of the BBC Bitesize website may be useful to you: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zx882hv

You are going to choose one of the habitats and research it by looking in books and on the Internet.

1. Draw and label the plants and animals that live in your habitat.

2. Write a description of what it is like to live there.

Write a sentence describing what it is like in this habitat.

Draw your chosen habitat, and label the plants and animals that live there.

Challenge: Now that you have researched your chosen habitat, could you phone a friend from your class and ask them about a habitat they have researched? Before you phone, think of some questions you can ask to find out about other habitats e.g.

1. What are the conditions like in that habitat?

2. What is the weather like?

3. What plants and animals live there?

4. What do they eat?

5. Where do they live?

6. How do they survive?

Task: Plants and animals live in habitats that suit them. They have special features (adaptations) that help them to survive in their habitat. This is why animals that live in cold places have thick fur, and why animals that live in or near water are good swimmers. Think about an animal from each of the four habitats and suggest how it survives in its environment.

Would a shark survive in the rainforest? Why/why not?

Would a polar bear survive in the desert? Why/why not?

Would a spider monkey survive in the ocean? Why/why not?

Would a camel survive in the arctic? Why/why not?

Working Together, Staying Alive Do you remember the world habitats you researched last time? What are the special conditions of these habitats? What animals and plants live here?

Task: Play the Habitats Game with your family, considering the animal or plant adaptation and deciding which habitat the living thing belongs in. This is uploaded to the website as a separate file.

Dependency

Living things in a habitat depend on each other. This means they need each other to stay alive.

Squirrels and oak trees are part of a woodland habitat. Why might a squirrel need an oak tree to stay alive?

Food: Acorns are a squirrel’s favourite food.

Safety: Living high in an oak tree gives squirrels protection from foxes and badgers, and gives them a safe place to have babies.

Shelter: The oak tree protects the squirrel from the wind, cold and rain, and bigger animals.

Why does an oak tree need a squirrel?

The oak tree needs the squirrel to spread its seeds. The squirrel collects lots of acorns and buries some to save for later. It carries them far away from the tree and hides them under the ground, away from other animals. Sometimes the squirrels forget to go and dig them up again. These acorns grow into new oak trees.

The squirrel needs the oak tree for food and shelter.

The oak tree needs the squirrel to spread seeds to new trees can grow.

The oak tree and the squirrel depend on each other. This means they need each other to stay alive.

Why do foxes need squirrels?

Foxes eat squirrels.

Why do foxes need oak trees?

If there were no oak trees, there would be fewer squirrels, so there would be less food for the foxes.

How do foxes help the oak trees?

If there were no foxes, there would be more squirrels. The squirrels might eat all of the acorns and then no new oak trees could grow. All of the living things in this habitat depend on each other to survive.

Task: Look at the habitats on the following pages. Read the labels and stick them onto the habitat to show how the living things in the habitat work together and depend on each other. Complete the sentences to say how animals and plants depend on each other to stay alive.

What about us?

How do humans depend on other living things for survival?

What living things depend on us?

Discuss these questions with your family at home.

Extra Task: Try writing an imaginative piece. Imagine you are an animal and describe a visit to your favourite habitat and the living things you encountered there.

Take a Trip: Visit Chester Zoo. What animals can you see there? What habitats are they from?

https://www.chesterzoo.org/virtual-zoo/

The zoos are showing different animals at different times in the day. You can watch live on Facebook or YouTube.

Food Chains Do you remember the seven life processes? (MRS GREN)

These are the things that all living plants and animals have to do.

These processes tell us if something is alive.

In this part of the pack you will find out about nutrition.

Nutrition is about food. All living things need food to survive. Food gives living things energy which they use to carry out the other life processes, like moving and growing. Green plants make their own food using sunlight, water and air. Animals are not able to make their own food. How do animals get their food?

Some animals get their food from eating plants. These animals are called herbivores. Can you think of some herbivores? Can you think of some of the different things they could eat?

Some animals get their food from eating other animals. These animals are called carnivores. Can you think of some carnivores? Can you think of some of the different things they could eat?

Some animals get their food from eating some plants and some other animals. These are called omnivores. Can you think of some omnivores? Can you think of some of the different things they could eat?

Are humans herbivores, carnivores or omnivores?

What is a food chain?

A food chain shows how each animal gets its food. Food chains are one of the ways that living things depend on each other to stay alive. Watch the video to find out more:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zx882hv/articles/z3c2xnb

The arrows in a food chain mean ‘is eaten by’. Can you name which animal is eating which in the food chain above?

Each food chain starts with a green plant. Green plants are called producers because they produce their own food.

All animals are called consumers because they consume their food by eating plants and other animals.

Animals that eat other animals are called predators. The animals that they eat are called prey.

There are food chains in all kinds of habitats.

Task: Use the cards on the next page to make your own food chains. Make as many food chains as you can. There are lots of correct answers.

producer

consumer

predator

prey

Task: Now draw two food chains from two different habitats. Record the habitat each food chain would be found in. You can use ideas from the last activity or come up with new ideas.

Challenge: Could draw a four-step food chain as one of your examples?

Can you label each living thing in the food chain and label ‘producer’ and ‘consumer’?