A Guided Activity: Describe That Habitat. The purpose of this activity, is for students to practice using adjective clauses with where and to describe different habitats. Teachers must prepare this handout and provide a handout for each pair of students. When introducing this activity, tell the students to title, Describe that Habitat. Show them the worksheet and explain what a habitat is. You can use this definition, the natural home of a plant, animal, or other living thing. Give students the instructions. You must write two sentences about each habitat on the worksheet using adjective clauses with the pronoun where. There are five habitats on the worksheet, and space to write a total of ten sentences. Students must work with a partner and combine their knowledge of these habitats. They can talk about the climate, animals, plants, or other facts. It's important that they give information that they believe is true. They can try to think of information that's new for their classmates, that others may not know or just statements that are generally interesting. On the work sheet, you will see rainforest, Deserts, Polar regions, Grasslands, And even urban areas. Before students try the worksheet, it's important that the teacher provide examples. Examples can be about swamps. Here are some example sentences. Number one, swamps are places where the water moves very slowly or does not move at all. Swamps are regions where the climate is humid. Swamps are areas where many animals live, such as alligators, turtles, frogs, fish, and cranes. Point out that the subject of all of the sentences should be the habitat, in this case swamps. And the general word they used to describe swamps can be places, regions or areas. Encourage the students to try different vocabulary words. And finally, the adjectives clause must begin with where, followed by the subject and verb in the clause Once students know what to do, they're ready to begin. The first step is for them to write sentences with their partners. After they are through writing their ten sentences, each pair will switch with another pair. Next, students will check for errors, and mark them with a question mark. Tell the students that they should not make the corrections, but just add a question mark. They will also draw happy faces next to information that is new or especially interesting to them. The last step is for the two pairs to join together and to discuss all of the question marks and happy faces. This is when they could make corrections to any errors. If time allows, consider having students share sentences on the board. They can write sentences with possible errors to correct together and also share new and interesting information. This is a great time to discuss these sentences as a class. Now teachers, I want to point out a couple of things. The importance of audience is the first. When students know their sentences will be read by other classmates and possibly the whole class, they will put in the extra effort to write interesting, well-formed sentences. So make sure to give them plenty of opportunities to read each other's work. Also for an activity like this, you may want to consider allowing students to do some research. If the technology is available and your students could benefit from doing research, allow them to search the Internet for interesting information about the habitats that they maybe did not know before. Hope you enjoy describing that habitat.
