Pre-Visit Activities : Animals are Consumers : Procedures Third - Fifth Grade Online Curriculum : Communities

Materials

• Food, or items or pictures depicting food
• Plastic sandwich bags
• Paper
• Writing or drawing utensils

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Procedure

1. (This activity works well if conducted after the "Plants are Producers" activity). Discuss with students how plants are able to make their own food energy from water, air and sunlight. Ask students if they can make their own food energy like plants. Ask them how they get their food energy.  Introduce the concept of consumers (organisms that get their energy and nutrients by eating other organisms) to the students and explain that they, like other animals, are consumers.
2. Divide the students into five groups. Give each group a bag of items depicting food, such as potatoes, lettuce, bananas, hamburgers, fried chicken. Have children identify each item. Then ask the students, "If you were going to eat one of these items, which would it be?" Have the students choose one item and record on paper what they chose. Ask them to discuss if the food they chose came from a plant or an animal. Have them record their response on their data sheet.
3. Introduce the concepts herbivore and carnivore. Have students think about which food item they chose. If they chose a plant item, tell the students that they are like herbivores. If they chose an animal item, tell the students they are like carnivores. Have them record on their data sheet if they are a herbivore or carnivore. Have some of the students name out loud the food item they picked. Have the rest of the class determine whether that student would be a carnivore or a herbivore.
4. Have the students return their food items to the bag. Have them pick out their two favorite food items from the bag. Have the students write the two food items down on their data sheet. Ask students to raise their hands if they picked both a plant and an animal item. Explain the concept of omnivores. 
5. Wrap up the lesson.  Review what consumers, herbivores, carnivores and omnivores are. Show pictures of  some familiar plants and animals and have students identify them as producers or consumers. If the organism is a consumer, have the student identify the organism as a herbivore, carnivore or omnivore. (Examples of producers: dandelions, oak trees, grass, azaleas. Examples of herbivores: cows, deer, grasshoppers, rabbits. Examples of carnivores: wolves, sharks, owls, frogs. Examples of omnivores: Humans, raccoons, blue crabs, shrimp.)

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Follow-up questions:

• Why do some animals have sharp teeth, some animals have flat teeth and some have both? Is this a clue as to whether they are a carnivore, herbivore or omnivore?
• What would happen if all animals were only carnivores?
• In a community would you have more plants or more herbivores? Would you have more herbivores or more carnivores?