GR. 1 SCIENCE UNIT

Lessons

1: Animals
2: Animal Charades
3: Animals Shapes
4: Animal Coats
5: Lunch Time
6: Animal Friends
7: Animal Sort
8: Off to Petland
9: Basic Needs for Pets
10: The Pet Vet
11: Staying Alive
12: Animal Habitats
13: Animal Adaptations
14: Animal Homes
15: Staying Alive
16: Animal Life Cycles
17: Animal Babies
18: Birds and Reptiles

LESSON 5 - LUNCH TIME

Background:
All animals need food to stay alive and many spend most of their time looking for it. Some animals eat meat, so they hunt or lay traps for smaller creatures. Others feed on plants, nibble at seeds, or suck up liquids. Animals use different parts of their bodies, including sharp teeth, strong claws, tough beaks, and sticky tongues, to help them eat their food.

Objective:
Observe and describe many types of animals. Classify animals on the basis of the foods they eat.

Quick Peek:
While looking at and identifying various plant and meat eating animals, the students use prior knowledge, and information yet to be discovered to classify animals on the basis of the foods they eat. (This lesson is ongoing throughout the unit.)

Materials:
Animal pictures (be sure to include some that eat plants and those that eat other animals!)
3 boxes or baskets
labels

Methods:

1. Place 3 baskets at the front of the room. Label one of them “Plants”, one “Meat” and the other with a question mark.
2. Hold up pictures of various animals and have the students name them.
3. Ask the children if they know what each animal eats—explaining that some animals eat plants and some animals eat other animals.
4. As you hold up each picture, place the picture of the animal in the right basket. If the students are not sure, then that picture goes into the question mark basket and as the unit progresses, or if a student finds a picture of that animal eating either a plant or another animal, then the picture of that animal can be taken out of the question mark basket and placed in the correct basket.
5. Be sure to read many books that discuss what animals eat as your unit progresses.

The following are a few good ones:
How Animals Get Food by Bertha Morris Parker
I Eat Leaves by JoAnn Vandine
Animals that Store Food by Gwynne Vevers
Dinnertime for Animals by Jane R. McCauley
Animals Eating by Pamela Hickman and Pat Stehpens

*As well, take the opportunity to visit the Forestry Farm Park and ask the students what they saw the monkeys eat, what they saw the fox eat..etc. Did they all drink water?