Science Week - Day 4 - Food Chains

Today at The Reading Garden all the children learned about food chains.
The younger children thoroughly enjoyed the book Hey Diddle Diddle - A Food Chain Tale by Pam Kapchinske! This book is written to excite as it uses a familiar song to help keep the young reader engaged. Each animal in the food chain sings it's own version of Hey Diddle Diddle...yes...I sang and by the second animal I could hear my little readers singing hey diddle diddle ever so softly!
Of course when I asked them to rate the book they all agreed it was FANTASTIC! I then distributed a fun worksheet on which they used pictures they were given to create a food chain.
After food chain fun we went on to having some fun with plastacine!

In the afternoon I started my session with the older children with a discussion about food chains. We talked about producers, herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores. We discussed why food chains always start with plants and which type of animal is likely to come next. I then read a few links from the book Pass The Energy Please by Barbara Shaw McKinney! The children looked at the pictures and the various food chains. We then did a food chain exercise....a literal food "chain". This exercise was created by Magnify the Science Classroom. I found it was a very creative way to illustrate and solidify all we discussed about food chains. The children loved the exercise and even made George Washington "hair" from it! lol....you HAVE to love children!

Of course we did an experiment! We made fireworks using milk, food colouring and dish soap! :) I think they loved it because there was much cleaning to be done at the end!