Today we are going to learn about:

Food Chain and Food Webs

Objective: students will create a simple food chain and be able to write three
descriptive sentences about the path of energy within a food chain using key
vocabulary. Students will know the primary source of energy entering most food chains
and identify the main components and how they compete for resources.
Lesson
Section 1 (8 minutes) Whole class discussion
What did you have for breakfast? (Put up pictures and write under them) One word
responses:
Cereal, milk, fruit, yogurt, orange juice, sausage, bacon, pancakes, eggs
Why do you eat breakfast? Hungry? Why do we get hungry? We need energy. Where
do we get that energy? (From food)
How would you feel if you didnt eat breakfast? (Weak) (Hungry)
What would happen if you didnt get food? We couldnt survive / we need energy / food
gives us energy.
So, we need food to survive. Are we in agreement?
Lets look at where our food comes from and how food gets energy. Where did your
breakfast come from? Use pictures as students make suggestions. Write responses and
use pictures to go with them
Cereal- store: Where does the store get it? Farmers grow: corn, wheat, rice
Milk- cows
Fruit- grows on trees or plants
Yogurt-also cows, goat
OJ- also fruit
Sausage-animal- pig, chicken, turkey
Bacon-pig, turkey
Eggs-chicken
Pancakes-whats in a pancake-eggs, flour-wheat, milk
Tortillas-corn, wheat, beans, chicken

Teacher says Im going to put a P in front of some of these foods and an A in front of
others. Does anyone know why? Would anyone like to come up and finish the list? (P is
for plants and A is for animals) yes
Who eats the plants besides us? Yes the other animals do. So we need a lot of plants!
Section 2. (1 minutes)
Does anyone know the scientific way of describing plants and animals?
Put on board:

Pro_ _ _ _ _ _

and

Con_ _ _ _ _ _

Choose someone to come and fill in the blanks if someone knows and ask what do they
mean? Which one is plants and which one is animals?
Make a connection: Has anyone ever gone to the supermarket and seen the word
Produce? What is in the produce section of the supermarket? (Supermacado)
Vegetables and fruits (frutas) Yes, plants are Producers. Write Plants under
Producers. Choose someone else to put pictures of plants under Producers.

Who buys the food and eats or consumes it? What do I mean by consume? Eat - we
do! Humans are consumers.
You are a consumer! We eat plants. We are all consumers. Ask all the students to
point to a consumer in this room. Make sure everyone is involved. They should be
pointing to each other.
Write humans (with a person picture) under the topic of Consumer.
Choose someone to put pictures of animals under Consumers.
Who else is a consumer? Teacher points to the animals on the board: cows, pigs,
chicken, turkey. Choose someone to put pictures of animals under Consumers.
Think. Pair. Share. In your table groups make a list of Producers and Consumers.
When you have three of each someone from your group come up and write them under
our topics.
Section 3 (8 minutes)
Lets look at our lists. I notice that humans consume plants, but we also consume
animals-unless someones a vegetarian. So Im going to put a P&A by humans. Are
there any other animals that consume both plants and animals? Who would like to come
up and put a P&A by other animals that eat both plants and animals? Dogs, pigs, bears,
squirrels, chickens, birds

What is it called when a consumer eats both plants and animals? Wait for responses.
Omnivore (who can guess what omni means?) Omni means all and vore means to
devour Eaters of plants and animals. Teacher writes Omnivore in Consumer topic
What about animals that eat only plants? Someone come up and put a P by those
animals. Cows, deer, panda bears, hippopotamus, camel, horses
What do we call an animal who eats only plants? Herbivore (what is the root word?)
Herb which is? -a plant. Eater of plants. Write Herbivore in consumer topic.
Does anyone know animals that eat only other animals and not plants? Lions, cats,
cougars, tigers
What do we call an animal who eats only other animals? Carnivores! Who can find a
word inside this word? What does carne mean is Spanish? Meat: it comes from a Latin
word caro meaning meat.) Eaters of meat. Teacher writes Carnivore in Consumer
topic.
Under the word Carnivore teacher puts a long rectangular box for another word.
Theres one more consumer that is not so obvious to us because we dont always see
them. Ask the class if anyone knows what Im talking about.
Write De_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ in the box and ask if anyone knows what it is. If not, fill it in by
saying it slowly. Ask students to pronounce the word. Decomposers (detritivores) are
microorganisms that break down non-living things. They are earthworms and many are
microorganisms you cant see, but they are very important.
Watch the Brain Pop video on Food Chains and Food Webs. (5 minutes)
Section 4 (15 minutes)
Food Web Game-Tell student we are going to make a food web. Having the students
say their role gives ELs a chance in speaking and helps in understanding for everyone
else.
Have students sit in a circle. Hand out to each students a card with the name and
picture of a plant, animal or decomposer on it. One student will have the sun. Cards will
have string so students can put them over their heads and wear them around their neck
so their role is visible.
Ask the students which organisms rely directly on the sun for their healthy growth and
reproduction. The person with the sun holds a ball of yarn and says, I give sunlight to
the plants, so they can grow and survive. She passes the yarn to a student with the
card of a plant. The student who is the sun continues to hold one end of the yarn as
students are identified as needing the sun for survival and the yarn is passed to them.
They should say, I need the energy of the sun to survive.
Repeat the questioning and sharing until the next level of each web is identified. I am a
grasshopper and I eat the plants for my energy to survive. Having the students

describe their roles to the class during the game will help build a better understanding of
the interdependence between roles in each web. I am a frog and I eat grasshoppers for
my energy to survive. I am a snake and I eat frogs to survive. I am a hawk and I eat
snakes to survive. I am a fox and I eat birds to survive Finally I am a decomposer
and I eat non-living things to survive. I break them down, so that living things can use
them again to grow new plants. This completes the web.
Discuss the cyclic nature of the web. Ask students:
What is the first part of the web? (Sun) Why? (For energy)
Are there members of the web in competition with each other? For what? Who else
wants the grasshoppers? (Mice) (Birds)
Why are the decomposers continually at the end of the food chain?
What happens if part of the web disappeared, like the grasshoppers? Or the rabbits?

Remember at the beginning of class when I asked you what would happen if you didnt
get your food for your energy. Eventually you couldnt survive. That is the same for
everything in this food web as well. If they dont have what they need, they couldnt
survive.
Lets see what happens to the web if we were to break the chain in the web. Ask
students where should I break it? What if we didnt have decomposers? Teacher has
scissors and cuts one part off. Students can see how the web collapses.
Section 5 (10 minutes)
Students return to desks and keep their cards. Teacher passes out a Graphic Organizer
of a flow chart. Fill in a food chain identifying the path of energy using the cards that you
and the other students at your table have. Draw in the sun. Then write three sentences
on the lines at the bottom to summarize what you know about food chains using the key
vocabulary on the board.
Early finishers can color their pictures or play the Brain Pop food web game on the
computer or ipad.
If there is time, class can take quizzes (easy and hard) from the Brain Pop video about
food chains and food webs.