Habitats - Ponds

Focus: A pond is composed of different habitats, each of which hosts a number of creatures specially adapted to live there.

Puppets (Mother, Polly, Dream Fairy, Wesley Water Boatman, Shirley Whirligig Beetle, Dana Damselfly Nymph, Pond Polly)

Materials Checklist
Puppet Show (puppets, script, Pond Polly)
Poking Around Pond Habitats (white dish pans, plastic cups, collecting nets or large strainers, hand lenses, optional field guides)
Pond Pantomime (dish pans with collected animals, hand lenses)
Pond Mural (large sheets of paper, paints, crayons, markers, colored pencils, tape)

Supplemental Reference Materials (Many Uses of Cattails, Some Small Water Dwellers of New England)

Additional Reading/Resources
Pond Life: A Guide to Common Plants and Animals of North American Ponds and Lakes, by G.K. Reid, et. al., Golden Guide, St. Martin's Press, 2003.
A Guide to Common Freshwater Invertebrates of North America, by J. Reese Voshell, McDonald & Woodward, Blacksburg, VA, 2002.

ELF Notes - Template for newsletter on Ponds
* Word document * pdf file

For Younger Children
Many of the activities in VINS's new Small Wonders book can be used in ELF, too. To find appropriate activities for children aged 3-6, click here.

Teaching Suggestions

Naturally, this unit is most successful when conducted at a pond. If a class trip, or setting up a temporary pond water aquarium is not possible, the main focus of the workshop can be an expanded Pond Mural activity following the Puppet Show and Picture a Pond with Your Ears.

Include some pond study activity ideas in the school newsletter or on the school website to encourage families to explore this special habitat together.

Puppet Show
You might include props to throw out over the puppet stage as Polly packs – swim suit, swim mask, snorkel.

Pond Pantomime
For older kids, have them work in small groups to construct and act out the creature. 1 is head and mouthparts, 2 or 3 are body parts, 1 is tail -- or whatever.

Picture a Pond with Your Ears
If you don't have a pond nearby to visit, you might bring in a recording of a pond site, preferably made in the morning and/or evening when birds and perhaps spring peepers and other critters are most vocal. Or create your own Pond Symphony similar to Clock Chorus in the unit Bird Songs (Cycles). Give each child a card which names a critter you might find in or near a pond such as various birds, frogs and insects and other animal visitors. (Possibilities might include ducks, songbirds, woodpeckers, crows, peepers, green frogs, bees, crickets, fish splashing.) You can even include weather sounds like the breeze in the cattails and rain on the water (hands patted against pants). Each card should give appointed 'playing' times for a 24-hour cycle. The children then imitate their sounds during their appointed times while the leader turns the hands of a pretend clock.

Pond Mural
Laminate photos or color drawings of critters and plants to tape to the mural.

Give each child some black and white line drawings of a variety of pond critters and plants to color and cut out, and then place in the appropriate pond mini-habitat (the surface film, open water, water's edge, submerged plants, and the bottom) to complete the mural. Older children can draw pond inhabitants or visitors on their own or use field guides as references. Be sure to include plant life such as cattails, reeds and underwater plants, as well.

Give information about pond critters to one or two "researchers" (volunteer or older students). Once children have placed their critter on the mural, the researcher shares any other interesting information about the critter.

Extensions
After visiting the pond, have each child do a watercolor painting of the pond while listening to a tape of pond sounds.

Learning Goals

Concepts/Ideas:

• Insects living in pond habitats have special adaptations that make it possible for them to survive and reproduce.
• Listening to sounds around a pond tells about the kinds of creatures that live there.
• Animals and plants are adapted to live in different pond habitats: on the water's surface, in open water, on the bottom, in bottom silt and debris, or along the pond edge.
• Pond animals have various ways of moving on the water's surface, through the water, or along the bottom of the pond.
• Pond plants and animals collected for study must be gently returned to their habitat.

Vocabulary:
habitat, pond, inhabitants, adaptation, surface film, open water, water's edge, debris, silt, insect larvae, insect nymph, emergent plants (definitions)

Skills:

• Identifying through active listening some adaptations needed to live in a pond
• Listening to the variety of sounds around a pond to determine the kinds of creatures that live there
• Using tools to collect, observe and identify creatures from various pond habitats
• Observing pond creatures and experiencing the ways they move in water through role-playing
• Creating a model using paper, crayons, pencils or markers of the different habitats within a pond and the accompanying pond critters

Grade Expectations:
Grades PK-K (S30, S38) A pond is “home” for a variety of plants and animals. Living plants and animals in a pond need water, food and air to survive.

Grades 1-2 (S30, S35, S38) A pond as habitat provides water, food, shelter and space for plants and animals that live there. Insects that live in a pond are made up of body parts that enable them to get the food water and air they need to live and make it possible for them to survive in their particular habitat.

Grades 3-4 (S30, S36, S38) Organisms that live in a pond have physical and behavioral characteristics that help them to get what they need to survive in their environment. There are many different kinds of aquatic insects. A pond serves as habitat for plants and animals whose needs are met there. Plants and animals in a pond interact with one another in various ways including providing food.

Grades 5-6 (S30, S38) A pond is habitat for plants and animals that are adapted to the conditions there.
Aquatic insects found in a pond can be sorted into basic groups according to shared characteristics.

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