Student Sample
5E’s Lesson (Highlighting Process Skills)
5 E’s Lesson Plan: Homes and Habitats (Modified from NC Wild’s Everybody
Needs a Home)
Grade Level: Grade 4
Competency Goal: Goal 1
The learner will make observations and conduct investigations to build an understanding
of animal behavior and adaptation.
Objective 1.05
Recognize that humans can understand themselves better by learning about other
animals.
Science Content and Background information:
All animals, including humans have the same basic needs. Every animal has a home. In
the wild, a home is called a habitat . A habitat includes the animals basic needs such as
food, water, shelter, and space.
Humans have created many different forms of shelter. We many live in apartments,
houses, trailers, cabins, etc. Domesticated animals, animals that have lived with humans
for centuries and are tame, also have these same needs. Likewise, wild animals live in
various types of homes. These shelters may be underground, in a tree, in bushes, under
logs, or in many other places.
The teachers actions:
Engagement: Ask students to draw a floor
plan of their home.
Exploration: Take the students outside to
find examples of animals’ habitats. Make
sure students understand that they
shouldn’t disturb the habitats. Students
should take notes.
Explanation: Bring up different pictures on
the smart board of habitats and homes.
Explain the different basic needs that all
living things share. Instruct students to go
back and label their homes with each basic
need.
Elaboration: Draw a habitat for a
domesticated animal. Include all the basic
needs. After completed, students will
compare all three habitats.
The students’ actions (process skills):
Engagement: Students will provide
feedback and share the different homes
they live in. (Communicating)
Exploration: Students will observe different
habitats. They will then share them with a
peer. (Observing and Communicating))
They will draw a picture of the observed
animal’s environment. (Observing)
Explanation: Students will label their
original drawings with basic needs as well
as writing down (or drawing) the observed
habitat of the animals that they saw.
(operational definition)
Elaboration: Students will compare and
make inferences from the three habitats
that were recorded.
Student Sample
5E’s Lesson (Highlighting Process Skills)
Evaluation: Using their knowledge about
habitats, students will answer questions
stated below and turn them in.
Evaluation: Students answer the questions
below and turn them in.
Materials needed: blank paper, crayons, colored pencils, Smart board (or pictures of
habitats and homes.
ASSESSMENT:
What are three reasons people need homes and animals need shelter?
Draw a suitable habitat for an animal that you have not yet described. In a paragraph,
write how all the animal’s needs are met.