WORLD OF WONDER
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Children
SESSION 5: HABITATS
BY REV. ALICE ANACHEKA-NASEMANN, PAT KAHN, AND JULIE SIMON
© Copyright 2013 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 11/9/2014 2:28:57 AM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
SESSION OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. — Henry David Thoreau, 19th-century Transcendentalist
This session studies the interdependent web through the lens of "habitat," an environment that supports the life needs of all the plants and creatures living in it. Children think about the many needs a habitat supplies. Through the story "Habitat at Home," children discover ways they can act in their own environment to help animal co-dwellers meet their basic life needs.
GOALS
This session will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
SESSION-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Opening | 5 |
Activity 1: Earth Ball Name Game | 5 |
Activity 2: Story — Habitat at Home | 10 |
Activity 3: Micro-hike Habitat Walk | 20 |
Activity 4: Pinecone Feeder | 15 |
Faith in Action: Creating Backyard Habitats | 60 |
Closing | 5 |
Alternate Activity 1: Welcoming Web Game | 10 |
Alternate Activity 2: Habitat Show and Tell | 15 |
Alternate Activity 3: Habitat Hike | 15 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Find a place where you can be quiet with your thoughts. Close your eyes and breathe deeply for several minutes, perhaps repeating a word or phrase to separate yourself from the activities of the day. When you feel settled and relaxed, consider:
Allow your own sense of reverence, wonder, and awe to be present as you lead this session.
SESSION PLAN
OPENING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
The opening circle rituals reinforce the theme of interdependence and the web of life and provide leadership opportunities for participants.
Gather participants in a circle around the chalice. Using the Leadership Chart created in Session 2, assign roles for this session. Briefly describe each job. Explain that next time you meet the jobs will change and anyone who did not get a job today will have a chance during another session. Throughout the session, prompt those with leadership tasks at the appropriate times.
Remind the group that each session starts with the ritual of lighting the chalice. In these words or your own, say:
All around the world, Unitarian Universalists of all ages light chalices when they gather together. With this ritual, Unitarian Universalists are connected to one another, even though they might never meet each other. Now we will light the chalice, the symbol of our Unitarian Universalist faith; then say together our chalice-lighting words.
As needed, help the designated leaders light the chalice and lead the chalice-lighting words:
We light our chalice to honor the web of all life.
We honor the sun and earth that bring life to us.
We honor the plants and creatures of land, water, and air that nourish us.
And we honor each other, gathered here to share the wonder of our world.
— adapted from words by Alice Anacheka-Nasemann
Point to the covenant the group created in Session 1 and briefly review it. Invite any newcomers to sign their name. You might have the Welcoming Leader or Justice Leader invite newcomers to sign the covenant, if those roles have been assigned.
Remind the children that each time we meet, we will explore something about our seventh UU Principle: respect for the interdependent web of life. In these words or your own, say:
Today we will talk about habitats. A habitat is an area that provides the food, water, and shelter that an animal needs to live.
Ask if anyone has heard the word habitat before, or if they have ever visited one.
Including All Participants
At this age there is a very wide span in terms of reading abilities; point out words as you read them to the children, but do not expect them to be able to read.
ACTIVITY 1: EARTH BALL NAME GAME (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity engages active learners while helping everyone learn the names of participants and leaders.
Stand in a circle with participants. Say, in these words or your own:
One important way to make connections and help everyone feel welcome is to know each other's names. We will use this earth ball each time we are together to help create connections in our group. When someone throws the "earth" to you, catch the ball and say your name.
Demonstrate by throwing the ball gently to a co-leader. Have the co-leader say their name.
Then everyone says "Welcome, [co-leader's name]." Then, that person will gently throw the earth ball to someone else in the circle, who will say their name and be welcomed by the group.
Continue until everyone in the circle has been introduced.
Including All Participants
If throwing and catching the ball is difficult, do the activity seated with legs out and feet touching, rolling the ball instead of throwing it. If any participant cannot stand or sit on the floor, have everyone play in a circle of chairs.
ACTIVITY 2: STORY — HABITAT AT HOME (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Gather the children in a circle in the storytelling area and show them the story basket. Say something like:
This is our story basket. I wonder what is in it today?
Take the story-related items from the basket, one at a time, and pass them around. Objects that are fragile or cannot easily be passed around can be held up for all to see and then placed on the altar/centering table or any table or shelf.
Take the chime or rain stick from the basket and say in these words or your own:
Each time you hear a story during World of Wonder we will use this instrument to get our ears, minds, and bodies ready to listen. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. When I sound the chime (turn the rain stick over), listen as carefully as you can and see how long you can hear it. When you can't hear it anymore, open your eyes and it will be time for the story to start.
Sound the chime or rain stick. When the sound has completely disappeared, read or tell the story, "Habitat at Home."
When the story is finished, lead a brief discussion using questions such as:
Including All Participants
Fidget objects, described in Session 1, Leader Resource 1, can provide a non-disruptive outlet for anyone who needs to move or who benefits from sensory stimulation.
ACTIVITY 3: MICRO-HIKE HABITAT WALK (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Children explore, using their imaginations.
Give each child a five-foot string or piece of yarn. Ask each child to lay the length of the string on the most interesting ground they can find outside. Tell the group to pretend that they have shrunk to the size of an ant, beetle, or other small creature.
Give each child a magnifying glass. Invite children to explore the ground along their string, using the magnifying glasses. Ask them to keep their eyes not higher than one foot above the ground. If the ground isn't wet, encourage them to lie on their bellies while exploring.
After the micro-hike, invite the children to share their observations:
ACTIVITY 4: PINECONE FEEDER (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Children create a simple bird feeder.
Demonstrate, and then help children as needed:
1. Tie a piece of string or yarn to the top of the pinecone.
2. Create a loop for hanging.
3. Cover the surface of the pinecone with the shortening mixture, filling in the spaces between the scales.
4. Roll the pinecone in the birdseed until it is covered completely.
5. Wrap the pinecone feeder in waxed paper to take home.
Optional: Go outside to hang pinecone feeders at the congregation.
CLOSING (5 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Gather in a circle by the World of Wonder mural. Say in these words or your own:
Today we learned that habitats are areas that provide the food, water, and shelter an animal or plant needs to live. Unitarian Universalists believe that that all people and animals and plants are part of an invisible web of life, like the web on our mural. Each time we meet we add something new to our World of Wonder mural. Today we add a picture of a backyard habitat, to remind us that we can care for the animals and plants that live in a forest, meadow, pond, or other habitat, and that helps make our interdependent web strong and healthy.
Attach the picture to the mural.
Indicate the lyrics to the closing song "We've Got the Whole World in Our Hands." Invite the Song Leader to start the song with accompanying hand motions. Participants can help each other remember hand motions or can create new ones.
Distribute Taking It Home. Thank the children for participating and invite them to return next time.
FAITH IN ACTION: CREATING BACKYARD HABITATS (60 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Participants and families connect with each other in a way that fosters shared commitment in caring for the earth.
Hold an event to launch participants' families creation of one or multiple backyard habitats at home, at the congregation, or at a local school or other public place.
Consult with the religious educator to choose a date and time for a family gathering. You may wish to invite the wider congregation to participate, too. Arrange for knowledgeable speakers to present information about habitats. If any families already have a certified backyard habitat at home or at a local school, invite them to talk about their project.
At the gathering, introduce the World of Wonder program. Share the story "Habitat at Home" and lead a brief discussion of the story. While the discussion is going on, you may wish to have materials available to create pinecone feeders (Activity 4). Have the speakers present the materials on backyard habitats, emphasizing how creating or improving a habitat contributes to the health of our interdependent web.
If it is feasible to create a certified habitat on congregational grounds, ask for a small group of volunteers to work with the director of religious education or appropriate congregational leaders to develop a plan for next steps. Families may also choose to create their own habitat at home, or work together with local schools to create a schoolyard habitat. Make sure the children are actively engaged in the chosen project.
Close the gathering by having the children lead the song "We've Got the Whole World in Our Hands". Make plans to communicate with families and the wider congregation about next steps and after the work has been done, to share their experiences.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Take a few minutes to evaluate the session with your co-leader immediately after the session, while it is fresh. Share your thoughts with other team leaders and the religious educator. You might find it helpful to consider these questions:
TAKING IT HOME
Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. — Henry David Thoreau, 19th-century Transcendentalist
If you want to save animals, you have to save the Earth, and to do that, you have to be green. — Marisa Kitchell, age 12, member of First Parish UU, Arlington, MA
IN TODAY'S SESSION... we learned that habitats are environments that support all the needs of the plants and animals that live there.
EXPLORE THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Talk about... how buildings and cities are part of human habitats. Where do you find water, food, shelter? If you find all these life-sustaining elements inside your home, does that mean your habitat is your home? Or is your habitat really a larger area surrounding your home? Where do the life supports you need actually come from?
EXTEND THE TOPIC TOGETHER. Try... choosing an outdoor area near your home and keeping a list of all the animals you see there this week. How does the habitat support them? Where do they find shelter, food, water? Would the animals' lives be different in a different season? Do you see migratory birds, for example?
A Family Adventure. The next time you go to a zoo or animal park, notice how similar the created habitat is to the animal's natural habitat. Ask the zoologists how the zoo chooses what to include and what is unfeasible or unnecessary?
Family Discovery. Do you have outdoor space near your home? Find out what animals live there. Could you attract more animals by changing the environment (e.g., could you install a window box with flowers that butterflies or hummingbirds love)? If there are animals you do not want visiting you, how can you change the environment so they stay away? Some ideas are playing a recording of a quiet cougar hiss out your window at night to keep skunks away, or planting vegetables in your garden that you know deer do not like.
The Family pages insert in the Fall 2012 UU World magazine has the theme "All God's Creatures... Even the Bat!" (at www.uua.org/re/families/153856.shtml) Learn how human activity has disrupted bats' habitats. Find out what some people are doing to help, and ways you and your child can get involved.
A Family Ritual. If you have pets, discuss how they would get their needs met if they lived in the wild. Why must we remember to feed our pets and clean up their waste?
To the extent that it is polite, visit friends in their homes—and invite them to your home—to see one another in your "natural habitats." Does seeing a friend's living space help you understand the whole person and what their life is really like?
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: WELCOMING WEB GAME (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity makes the concepts of interdependence and the web of life concrete with a web made out of yarn.
Tell the children that together you will create a web, like a spider web. Explain that, holding a piece of the yarn, you will roll the ball to someone else in the circle and welcome them by name. Then, that person will pass the yarn to someone else and the group will continue until everyone has been welcomed and is holding a piece of the yarn. Remind the children:
1. Do not let go of your piece of yarn when you roll the ball of yarn to the next person.
2. Pass the ball of yarn to someone who is not sitting right next to you.
Start the game. When everyone is holding a piece of yarn, point out that you have created a web together.
Ask everyone to hold their piece of yarn. Then, pull on your piece and ask the children what they noticed. Point out that everyone could feel the tug. Invite another child to tug the string and ask the children if they could feel that, as well. See if they can tell, by feel, who made the tug.
Now drop your string and ask the children what happens to the web. Ask the children what they think would happen if half of the group dropped their pieces of yarn. As needed, point out that the web might fall apart. At the end of the game, ask for a volunteer to roll the yarn back into a ball.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 2: HABITAT SHOW AND TELL (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
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:
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.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 3: HABITAT HIKE (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Take a walk outside. Ask the children, what they think a habitat is. They may know that it's the place where animals and plants are normally found. Tell them the place where they are hiking is a habitat—an environment where many plants and creatures live. As you walk, ask them to use their senses to observe the living things in the habitat, both animals and plants. Offer them magnifying glasses to get a closer look.
Ask them what they think living things need to stay alive in their habitat. They may know that most animals need water, food, shelter, and air to live. They may not know that plants need food (or nutrients from the soil), water, sunlight, and air. Tell them that even the bark of a tree can be a very tiny habitat for very small creatures. Ask them what animals might live in that habitat.
Say, in these words or your own:
Ants, beetles and spiders love to call the bark of a tree their home. They eat even smaller insects that also live there or maybe parts of the tree itself. Even a blade of grass can be home to several different animals.
As you hike, ask the children to look for evidence of shelter, food, and water—critical supports that animals need to survive in their habitat.
Look for nests of birds, squirrels, mice, or other small mammals, which are examples of shelter. A hollow log or a brush pile might be shelter for many critters, including opossums, rabbits, and snakes.
Some signs of food would be leaves, nuts, seeds, berries, mushrooms, insects, and of course other animals. Ask children if they knew that box turtles love to nibble on mushrooms.
Ask them to look for signs of water. Is there a stream or pond? If not, where else could animals get water? A small animal might need just a little bit of water. Look for leaves that are curled or shaped like cups that will hold the morning dew for a lizard, chipmunk or bird to drink from.
Invite the children to use four of their senses during the hike—their eyes, ears, nose, and (with care) touch. Remind them not to use their sense of taste, unless you have brought a snack or beverage safe for everyone to try.
When you have completed your walk, process the activity with questions like:
Including All Participants
Determine whether there are any relevant allergies in the group, such as bee stings or pollen, and plan accordingly.
If you have a participant who uses a wheelchair or has limited mobility, select a location that is accessible, with paved paths.
WORLD OF WONDER: SESSION 5:
STORY: HABITAT AT HOME
By Julie Simon.
Kylie groaned on the sofa. Her best friend Georgia was sick. It was Saturday, and the girls had planned to ride their bikes to Sundale Preserve that morning. But Georgia had a sore throat. Kylie had been looking forward to the trip all week. Sundale was her favorite place to go on weekends. She and Georgia could ride there without a grown-up if they stayed on the bike trail.
The park was amazing. It had lots of space for exploring—flower gardens, fields, woods, a pond, and a stream. Kylie loved looking for the animals—fish, birds, lizards, and her favorite, butterflies. There was even a bat box that bats roosted in during the day and left at dusk. In the summer, Kylie would pick and eat wild blackberries, cool her feet in the bubbling stream, and watch turtles sunning on logs in the pond.
The animals in the park had everything they needed to live—plants and other animals for food, places for shelter and nesting, and the pond and stream for water.
Kylie's kindergarten teacher called the Sundale Preserve a wildlife habitat. Earlier in the year, Kylie's whole class had helped plant milkweed in the garden for butterfly food. Last weekend, Kylie and Georgia had seen tiny, golden eggs clinging to the leaves of some milkweed plants. She wanted to see if any of them had hatched into caterpillars yet.
Unfortunately, Sundale was too far for her to ride to without her friend. Kylie had graduated from training wheels more than a year ago, but she had just turned six years old last month. Her mom offered to walk with her, but she didn't really want to go without Georgia.
So instead she moped on the sofa.
"Why don't you go look for caterpillars in the backyard?" her dad suggested.
"We don't have caterpillars in our yard," Kylie said.
"How do you know unless you look?" he asked.
"But you need milkweed plants for caterpillars," said Kylie. "And we don't have those."
"Hmmm? We had caterpillars last year," said Kylie's dad. "Don't you remember they ate up my parsley last summer? I planted extra parsley plants this year, just so we could have some for the caterpillars and some for us to eat."
Kylie had forgotten about that. Then she got an idea. She would go look for caterpillars in the backyard and also look to see if there was a spot where they could plant their own milkweed to feed the butterflies. Kylie smiled and raced outside.
She headed straight for the veggie patch where the parsley was growing. Sure enough, a tiny, black caterpillar with a white band around the middle was climbing along a stem. She also spotted tiny eggs the color of butter on the leaves.
Then she raced back inside the house. "Dad, can we plant milkweed for the butterflies today so they can have food this summer?" she asked.
"Well, I'm pretty sure they already have some food out back. Remember, they loved gathering nectar from the coneflowers and asters last summer. We can plant some milkweed next spring. I think milkweed is what Monarch butterflies need for their eggs and caterpillars. We can also put out ripe fruit and see if the butterflies sip nectar from it."
"Ok. But today could we also dig a butterfly bath? And put out some basking rocks?" asked Kylie. She had learned that butterflies like to have "puddle parties" in shallow pools with muddy edges and they need heat-holding places to rest and sun their wings so they can warm up on cool mornings."
"Sure," he said. "Let's go look for some flat rocks and find a good, sunny spot."
Kylie was excited. She couldn't wait create their new backyard habitat for butterflies.
WORLD OF WONDER: SESSION 5:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: MURAL IMAGE — BACKYARD HABITAT
From the website of the North Carolina Wildlife Federation; used with permission.
FIND OUT MORE
The Family pages insert in the Fall 2012 UU World magazine has the theme "All God's Creatures... Even the Bat!" (at www.uua.org/re/families/153856.shtml) Learn how human activity has disrupted bats' habitats. Find out what some people are doing to help and ways you and your child can get involved.
Many children's magazines focus on habitats and the environment, and the National Wildlife Federation's Big Backyard (at www.nwf.org/kids/big-backyard.aspx) is one rich source. Also, the National Wildlife Federation offers habitat programs (at www.nwf.org/Get-Outside/Outdoor-Activities/Garden-for-Wildlife.aspx) to try at home or school.
The April 2011 issue of Muse Magazine (at www.musemagkids.com/) (available in most public libraries) had an interesting article about "ugly" animals, including a debate about whether saving habitats for humans' favorite animals would also benefit these other animals or if human dislike of these animals placed them at risk of extinction.
Visit the Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth (at www.uuministryforearth.org/) or the UUA's Green Sanctuary (at www.uua.org/leaders/environment/greensanctuary/index.shtml) program to learn how UUs are involved in taking care of the earth.