Animal Homes Box and Printable Animal Habitat Mats

We borrowed an animal homes kit from our library which has been great. It contained a variety of homes that animals different animals use. While looking and talking about these, we went on to talk about the different types of habitats that animals live in. These animal habitat mats and cards are a fun way to learn about which habitats different animals live in.

Printable Animal Habitat Mats

• white paper
• printer
• laminator
• scissors

In this Printable Animal Habitat pack, there are a total of seven habitats and over 120 animals. The habitats included are:

• coral reef
• desert
• polar regions
• rainforest
• wetlands
• woodlands
• savanna

While going through this kit, I decided to create some printable animal habitat mats. This 20-page printable pack can be used in a variety of ways. Yes, there is a lot of colour, but the colour does make this activity. I have added some extra pages with less colour at the back of the pack (see picture below), for those who don’t want to print out the full colour habitat mats (in the picture above). The animals are gorgeous photos of real animals.

Once you have printed all the pages, I laminated the six full colour and six white animal habitat mats. I cut out the animals leaving the border on the boxes and laminated them. I coloured the borders around the animals in specific colours to help with the matching of the animal cards to the habitats.

The animal borders mean:

• Dark blue border = coral reef
• Sand border = desert
• Light purple / lilac = polar regions
• Green = rainforest
• Dark green = wetlands
• Brown = woodlands
• Yellow = savannah

There is also a list of the names of each of the animals. This can be printed and glued to the back of the cards if desired.

I placed all the animal cards in a pile and then gave our boys a habitat mat each. They went through the animals and placed the ones they thought lived in their habitat, on their mat. 

Then they placed all the habitat mats in a row and placed the animals on the correct mats until all the animal pile was depleted. While doing this, they talked about the different habitats and what the animals needs to be able to survive in each environment.

The animal homes box we borrowed contained a variety of animal homes, which we used to place in the appropriate habitat. 

Included in the box was a small turtle shell. We talked about turtles and which habitat they were most likely to be found in.

There were a couple of different shipworm homes. We didn’t know much about shipworms, so after some research, we were able to work out which habitat they were most likely to live in. Shipworms are a variety of marine mollusc that bore into submerged wood.

Snails are creatures that carry their homes on their backs. This one is a garden variety, but we found different snails that can be found in ponds and the sea.

Hermit crabs are crustaceans that can be found all over the world. Most types of hermit crabs have adapted to living in the ocean, though some species do spend their life on solid ground. Marine ones can be found in coastal waters or in a deep sea, while others can inhabit tropical areas.

We have had an interesting time, learning a lot about animal homes and habitats.

To download your copy of the Animal Habitat Mats, click on the link below: