| Create a Food Chain, 3-5 |  |
Remember how much children enjoy making paper chains? Let's use paper to make a food chain in order to learn how all Earth's creatures and plants are linked to each other and to the sun.
Create a Food Chain, 3-5 Remember how much children enjoy making paper chains? Let's use paper to make a food chain in order to learn how all Earth's creatures and plants are linked to each other and to the sun.
- Cut half-inch strips of colored construction paper, one color for each category: plants, insects, plant-eaters, and meat-eaters (do not use yellow). Have the kids draw or paste cutout pictures on the strips of plants, animals, birds, insects.
- Let the children link the strips together into food chains. some examples might be: grass>a rabbit> a fox; corn>a chicken> man; seeds>a quail>a bobcat; algae> a minnow> a bass> man; grass> a grasshopper> a mouse> an owl; leaves>caterpillar> a bird> a snake> a hawk.
- When these are completed, make a larger ring out of yellow construction paper to represent the sun. Ask everyone to look carefully at their food chains and decide if the sun needs to be added to them. (Yes) Let the children link their food chains to your large ring with yellow strips. When you are finished, display the chains by hanging them (with the sun in the middle) to create a food chain canopy.
- Older children may lay the chains on the floor (with the sun in the middle and the food chains projecting like rays). Look carefully to see if any of the independent food chains can be linked together to create a food web. For instance, the "grass> rabbit> fox" chain can be linked from the rabbit to the owl, because owls also eat rabbits. "Man" can be linked to the rabbit, corn, chicken, quail and bass; since he also eats those things. (To link chains together, use longer strips or run string from one to another so that the web will hang nicely when completed.) When you are finished, display the food web from the ceiling with the sun in the middle.