Rainforest Habitat and Adaptations for Third Grade
Need a little help teaching your 3rd-grade class about the rainforest?
They will watch an informative slideshow, read about the rainforest, and complete some QR code research on rainforest animals and their adaptations, and more! Students will love learning about the rainforest habitat.
These are high-interest reading passages on the tropical rainforest.
It’s aligned with multiple standards – CCSS RI.3.4, RI.3.5, RI.3.10, NGSS 3-LS4-3, & 3-LS4-4, and Utah SEEd 3.2.5 and 3.2.6.
Text-dependent questions are asked so students are encouraged to read back into the text.
This close reading unit is aligned to 3rd-grade NGSS standards, but the informational text passages are geared to 3rd-5th grade. Students will love reading about all the interesting biodiversity of the tropical rainforest and what we can do to protect it.
Rainforest Habitat and Adaptations
Being invisible to a predator or to prey is an advantage in the tropical rain forest. One animal – the sloth – combines expert cover with slow-motion movement to dodge predators such as the jaguar. A sloth’s fur is covered with green algae so it blends with the environment. It is the world’s slowest moving animal and takes up to a month to digest its food, so it doesn’t need many resources to survive. The boa constrictor uses its camouflaged invisibility to sneak up on prey, while tiny rain forest grasshoppers have developed near-transparent coloring to blend in with leaves.
The ground floor and lower canopies of the rain forest bustle with wildlife. The aptly named spider monkeys have adapted to live at the top of the tree canopy where they have little competition for food. The spider monkey’s prehensile tail gives it the ability to swing gracefully from tree to tree. Sloths also live in the trees, preferring to spend the day hanging upside down from branches. Their propensity for slow movement attests to the lack of predators they face.
Some animals in the rain forest have adapted to a limited diet so they don’t face competition for food. Toucans snag hard-to-reach fruit – inaccessible to other feathered flyers – with their long, narrow beaks. Parrots have incredibly sturdy bills to crack nuts and dig out hidden food. Leafcutter ants put in a hard day’s work for a meal. They carry bits of leaves 50 times their weight from high branches to the ground. They bury the leaves and eat the fungus that grows as the plant matter decomposes.
Layered Book on the Rainforest
It contains LOTS of activities on the Rainforest Habitat:
Five pages of non-fiction text on the Tropical Rainforest (with response pages), a slideshow on habitat, interactive notebook inserts, two sorting activities, a layered book, and answer keys for everything!
I have mapped out a suggested timeline for you to show you how to use this unit over a span of 8 days. Don’t use your precious free time creating your own unit. I’ve done the work for you!
This is a great reading unit with a science theme!. It’s packed with fun activities to fully teach the two NGSS standards. Students will learn about the rainforest layers and all about the different organisms that live there.
Students will love this reading informational text unit on the tropical rainforest!
This complete unit has 100+ perfect reviews on Teachers Pay Teachers:
“Very low prep with high-interest passages. I was able to use some of this as a send home packet when my school closed. Great comprehension pages.”
“I am so impressed with this unit. Really high interest for my 3rd grade class.”
Try this unit in your classroom TODAY!
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Thank you, and I hope you enjoy using this unit in your classroom!
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