Habitats: Where Plants and Animals Live

A frog lives in a pond. A camel lives in the desert. Could they swap homes? Let’s find out what a habitat is, visit a forest, a desert, a pond and the ocean, see why each living thing lives where it does, and find out who eats what.

This lesson takes about 15 minutes. You can take a break after each part.

Before you start

Habitats: Where Plants and Animals Live

Learning objectives

  • I can say what a habitat is: the place where a plant or an animal finds what it needs.
  • I can compare the plants and animals of a forest, a desert, a pond and the ocean.
  • I can explain why an animal or a plant lives in a certain place.
  • I can put a short food chain in order, starting with a plant.

What is a habitat?

A home with everything it needs

A habitat is the place where a plant or an animal lives. There it finds what it needs: food, water and shelter.

Plants need their place too

A plant cannot move to find what it needs. It takes water from the soil and gets light from the Sun, right where it grows.

A pond under the sun: cattails and grass on the bank, a dragonfly in the air, a frog on a rock, a duck on the water, water lilies, and a fish swimming underwater.
A pond is a habitat: plants and animals find water, food and shelter there.

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Many different habitats

Forest, desert, pond, ocean

A forest has tall trees, deer, owls and mushrooms. A desert is dry and sunny: cactus plants and lizards live there. A pond has frogs, ducks and water plants. The ocean has fish, crabs, whales and seaweed.

Each habitat has its own living things

You do not find the same plants and animals everywhere. But in one habitat, many different kinds of living things live together.

Seven small scenes: a forest with a deer, snowy land with a reindeer, a desert with a cactus, grassland with a bison, a pond with a frog, a coral reef with fish and a turtle, and the dark deep sea with an anglerfish.
Forest, cold land, desert, grassland, pond, reef, deep sea: each habitat has its own plants and animals.

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Living where your needs are met

Each one lives where it finds what it needs

Deer eat leaves and buds, so they live in forests. Grass needs a lot of sunlight, so it grows in sunny meadows. A fish needs water all the time, so it lives in water.

Wet or dry, sunny or shady

Some places are wet, others are dry. Some are sunny, others are shady, hot or cold. Each plant and animal lives in a place that suits its needs.

Under the sea, a sea turtle, a shark and many colorful fish swim above a coral reef. Clownfish hide in an orange sea anemone, and sea grass and a starfish lie on the sand.
In warm, sunny sea water, the coral reef gives these animals food and places to hide: they live where their needs are met.

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Who eats what?

Food comes from the habitat

Animals find their food in their habitat. Some eat plants, like the rabbit that eats grass. Some eat other animals, like the fox that eats rabbits.

A food chain

We can draw who eats what with arrows: grass → rabbit → fox. The arrow goes from the food to the one that eats it. This is a food chain. It often starts with a plant.

A meadow with arrows from food to eater: a grasshopper eats grass, a frog and a mouse eat, a snake and a fox hunt, a hawk flies above, and mushrooms and a worm live in the soil.
Follow the arrows: they go from the food to the animal that eats it.

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Review game

Final assessment

To master the lesson, you need at least 60% correct answers.

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Summary

  • A habitat is the place where a plant or an animal finds food, water and shelter.
  • A forest, a desert, a pond and the ocean each have their own plants and animals, and many kinds live together.
  • Each living thing lives where its needs are met: deer in forests, grass in sunny meadows, fish in water.
  • A food chain shows who eats what: grass → rabbit → fox.

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