Our Environment

What You Need:

• 2 sheets of white watercolor paper
• Markers
• Pencil markers
• Scissors
• Pencil

What You Do:

1. Get started by placing a stack of three sheets of paper vertically (portrait style) and fold the stack into thirds. Cut along the thirds. 
2. Cut down the thirds into smaller pieces of paper that are about 2" x 2".
3. Ask your child to draw one life-form or environmental feature (river, valley, mountain, cloud) in each square using the markers. Try to encourage your child to come up with an equal amount of items that belong on land, in air and in water. Help them come up with some ideas as they draw.
4. Place the other sheet of paper vertically and draw two lines equally spaced from top to bottom to divide the paper into thirds. On the bottom of the page write "On Land" in the first space from the left, "In Air" on the second space, and "In Water" on the last space.
5. Ask your child to categorize where the drawings belong, filling up each area completely.
6. Turn this activity into a game by timing them to see how quickly they can correctly categorize each item that belongs in a given environment.

Helpful Hint:

Encourage your child to get creative with their  choices. For example: a caterpillar is a land animal, but after a few weeks it becomes a butterfly, which would probably be considered an air animal. If your child is really up for a challenge, ask them to think of as many animals and environmental features as they can that could be placed in more than one category.