SHARING THE PLANET
Central Idea : Animals and plants are dependent on each other.
We tuned into this unit of Inquiry by looking at what we had in our snack and lunch boxes. Where did that come from? Animals or plants? We recorded the contents and grouped them into the two sources .
As always, we used big book stories like Looks Like Lunch and Jump Frog Jump to begin our discussions. This lead into an inquiry into food chains which is our conceptual focus for this unit. We decided our Show and Tell sessions should be about plant eaters - Herbivores, meat eaters - Carnivores and Omnivores. Children researched with their parents and shared information about a variety of animals. It was great to see new questions going up on our Wonder Wall about why animals live in a particular habitat or how they have adapted to their environment to either hunt for food or hide from ending up on the dinner menu of other animals. New vocabulary like 'camouflage,' nocturnal animals,' 'prey,' 'top predator,' 'hibernate' and others were used with many questions about them.
We then classified animals into Herbivores, Carnivores and Omnivores using a Venn Diagram.
Field Trip to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve
We were met by a very interesting Mr Raj on our visit to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. Mr Raj is an expert on the flora and fauna of Singapore and is very knowledgeable about animals and plants. He was our guide and teacher for our outdoor classroom session and showed us creatures under logs and leaves, up in the trees and in the bushes, in the lake and on the shores. In all, we saw 22 different animals and learnt about the food chains they belong to. The most awesome sights were the Pit Viper, the Flying Lemur camouflaged against the tree trunk and a Green Crested Lizard chomping on a Praying Mantis!
We were met by a very interesting Mr Raj on our visit to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. Mr Raj is an expert on the flora and fauna of Singapore and is very knowledgeable about animals and plants. He was our guide and teacher for our outdoor classroom session and showed us creatures under logs and leaves, up in the trees and in the bushes, in the lake and on the shores. In all, we saw 22 different animals and learnt about the food chains they belong to. The most awesome sights were the Pit Viper, the Flying Lemur camouflaged against the tree trunk and a Green Crested Lizard chomping on a Praying Mantis!