Good morning everyone! Begin today with a quick recap of last week's words for different animal diets:
- herbivores
- carnivores
- omnivores
The colours help me to remember the meaning of the words! Today we are thinking about food chains so our science question is....
Who eats who?
First watch this BBC Bitesize clip to get a clear idea of the term 'food chain' and what it means.
Following this clip there is further detail to explain some of the words used; producer, consumer, predator and prey. Feel free to explore these but if they are confusing, just focus on the latter two words, predator and prey.
Food chains can be represented by simple diagrams using arrows. The arrow means 'is eaten by', so the following diagram would be read;
The sun gives energy to the leaf to make it's own food, the leaf is eaten by the worm and the worm is eaten by the bird!
The animal at the top of the food chain is called the 'apex predator', which means that it is not preyed upon by any other animal. I'm not sure if this bird is an apex predator. Can you think of another animal that might eat the bird?
Have a look at this food chain diagram. Read it using the phrase '... is eaten by...'.
Now for the fun part! Can you find any of your own food chains on this BBC Bitesize interactive game?
This challenge is set in a woodland habitat. Level 1 gives you a more simple food chain to complete so start with this. When you select the animal you will find out lots of detail about their diet and can then decide whether they will fill the next space on your food chain. Once completed, the next level will be unlocked. If you scroll to the bottom of the page you will also find 2 other habitats to explore; Tundra and Savannah.
Hope that you have lots of fun today learning about food chains through playing these games. If you want to have a go at recording one of the food chains from the game it is simple to do. Or, can you think of a food chain where humans are the apex predator at the top of the chain?
Just in case you want to have a go, here's one I made earlier!
Which one of my animals is the prey and which one is the predator?
Please remember that we are always happy to see any work you have done so do continue to contact us via the email, KS1@downhallprimary.com, with your fabulous work or any queries that we can help with.
Happy Friday everyone and have a lovely weekend,
KS1 Team
