Who Am I

Students write down some clues as to who the animal is.

I have two grasping claws/chelipeds

I live in a borrowed shell

I have 10 legs etc

Place some hermit crab-related items under a sheet or towel.

Ask students to put their hands under the towel and identify the object, whether it is a seashell, bowl, dish, guage or a pretend hermit crab.

Hot Seat

Armed with some knowledge of different types of land and marine hermit crabs and other marine animals, children sit in the 'hot seat' and pretend they are the animal. They become an expert on their subject while other classmates ask them questions.

Hermit Crab Poetry

With the help of some poetry models, children love to write hermit-crab related poetry, whether it is a Diamante', Cinquain, Haiku, Limerick or free-form. If your class writes some hermit crab-related poetry, why not email me and I will add it to the site to help other classes start off their writing.

Hermit Crab Stories

The premise is simple: imagine you are a hermit crab and write about a day in your life. This is a wonderful challenge for students to put themselves in the perspective of a hermit crab and may have them examining the needs of hermit crabs and their responsibility in meeting those needs. Some stories written by Hermies Yahoo!Groups members can be found here.

Other teaching ideas:

Hermit Crab Unit by Lisa Gorman

Students will correctly label the parts of a hermit crab and understand their needs.

The Search For Housing :
Pagurus (marine) hermit crab

The Search for Housing is a lesson plan created by 2000 HOST Teacher Michael Collins.
http://nrs.ucop.edu/host/curricula/hermitcrabs.html