Eric Carle: A House for a Hermit Crab

     We are currently working on an ocean unit in our classroom, so I thought a project based on the book, A House for a Hermit Crab by Eric Carle would be perfect.  I found the cutest idea from this blog and I took the idea and ran with it.

      First, we read the book and acted out motions for each animal that the hermit crab attached to its shell.  Then we reviewed all the animals at the end and talked about being a good friend.  Our next step was to make red hand prints for the hermit's body and watercolor paper plates for the shells.  To make all the different animals, I set up 7 stations around room so the kids could visit each one as they got finished.  Most of the creature pieces are clip art outlines that they kids either painted, colored with marker, or added glitter to.

    Once the whole class has their pieces made, I'm going to have them line them up in what they think the order of the animals being added to the shell was.  Then we will read the story and readjust our orders. I'm also really excited to act this out in a reader's theater with my class. This not only helps us talk about science but we are working on our reading skills by sequencing the events.