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What's for Dinner?

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What's for Dinner? What’s For Dinner? – 4/5yr At a glance: Children will discover that different animals require different foods. Time requirement Goal(s) 1 hour To understand that different animals like different foods Group size and grade(s) 4/5 yr olds Objective(s) 5-11 year olds 1. Name 2 things that each of the following would eat: herbivore, Materials omnivore, carnivore, insectivore Food jars 2. Identify adaptations on Food tokens herbivores and carnivores Pictures of hornbill, mouse, rhino, and 3. Work on gross motor skills tiger Felt giraffe “tongue” Theme Glue sticks Animals require different foods to Brads survive. Paper plates Sub-themes Crayons/markers 1. Animals have different adaptations for finding and eating food. Academic standards National Science List relevant standards Educational Standards Use numbers when possible. Benchmarks for Science Literacy (Project 2061) Ohio Science Academic Content Standards Kentucky Core Content— Science Indiana Science Standards What’s For Dinner?, March 2011 Page 1 of 5 Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden Background Herbivore – an animal that eats only Because animals cannot produce their fruit and vegetation. own food in the way that plants do, they Omnivore – an animal that eats plants must consume other plants or animals to and animals. acquire the nutrients they need to Ruminant – an animal that regurgitates survive. Animals eat a variety of its food and chews its cud. different kids of food. Some are picky eaters or “specialists” and focus on one Activity type of food. An example of this would be a vampire bat. Others are walking Welcome and Introduction garbage disposals or “generalists” and Getting ready eat a wide variety of foods. An example You will need: of this would be an opossum. Most animals fall into the middle with specific Doing the activity dietary needs or preferences, but a Welcome the group to “What’s For willingness to meet those Dinner?”. Introduce the instructor and needs/preferences with a variety of the children, allowing them to share different food sources. In general, something interesting about themselves animals are classified by these diets or (favorite food). Introduce the topic: food sources into categories such as: What animals Eat. browser, grazer, omnivore, herbivore, carnivore, and many more. Wrap up A lot about what an animal might eat can n/a be determined by looking at their teeth. To go back to the previous examples, a Cookie Jar Relay vampire bat has special scalpel-like front Getting ready teeth that scrape the skin and allow them You will need: to get their blood meal while opossum At least one cookie jar/food have several different kinds of teeth (like canister us) that include sharp canines for Pictures of hornbill, tiger, and gripping and piercing food and flat rhino molars for chewing/grinding food. Food cards Despite what they eat, all of these animals depend on each other to survive. Doing the activity They all serve as a food source to, 1. Explain that you are going to population control for, or nutrient play a game and discover what recycler for each other. some different animals might eat. 2. Place the food jar at the end of Vocabulary the room with a picture of an Browser – an herbivore that primarily animal taped onto the cookie jar. eats from short trees and shrubs. Ask kids to line up behind you. Carnivore – an animal that hunts and 3. Show them pictures of the eats meat. cookies, leaves, deer, pigs, Grazer – an herbivore that primarily eats insects and berries and then grasses and sedges. scatter them around the room. Explain that they will take turns What’s For Dinner?, March 2011 Page 2 of 5 Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden to run out pick a food card and Ruminant – stomach has 4 put it into the food jar. Tell them compartments that digest the that each child will have a turn. leaves it swallows. After they 4. Tell the kids you are going to be swallow the leaves the first time, change the animal that they are a ball of leaves will travel all the collecting for each round. Place way back up the throat into the the picture of the rhino on the mouth for more grinding. Can cookie jar and talk about which quickly eat leaves on a savannah, of the foods (cookie, leaves, deer, and then retire somewhere safe or berries) the rhino would like to and regurgitate them and take eat. Play the game again, this time to chew them again and time asking the kids to pick cards remove as much of the nutrients that the rhino would eat! as possible. 5. Repeat until all the animals have Acacia leaves have a lot of water had a chance of being on a food so giraffes can go without jar. drinking for a long time. Rhino Leaves and grass Misc. cards Tallest land animals (18 feet) Tiger Deer and pig Heart is 2 feet long and weighs cards about 25 pounds. Hornbill berries and insect Can run up to 30 mph cards Have the same number of 6. Review what the different animal vertebrae in their necks as we do. ate. What would we like best? Why can’t we eat cookies all the Red Pandas time? Eating/Food Red pandas spend up to 13 hours Wrap up a day foraging for bamboo, Thank kids for being such great cooks eating only the youngest, most for our different animals. tender leaves. Pandas have a small, thumb-like Zoo Hike bone that sticks out from the Getting ready wrist that helps them grasp You will need: bamboo shoots Felt giraffe tongue (measured to Eat other food besides bamboo be length of real giraffe’s tongue) including some roots, fruit, grasses, acorns, lichens, small Doing the activity animals Giraffe Misc. Eating/Food Live in the mountain forests of May eat up to 75 pounds/day Asia Favorite leaves are acacia leaves Can live to be 14 yrs old (thorns on these trees are long Can weigh up to 14 lbs but don’t stop giraffe because of A baby was born here last year thick saliva and 18-inch tongue) Wrap-up What’s For Dinner?, March 2011 Page 3 of 5 Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden Do a head-count and head back to the Muscle contractions move the classroom. prey down the throat and into the snake’s stomach where super Animal Encounters digestive enzymes in stomach Getting ready process every part of the prey You will need: (even hair and toenails). 2 of the following: snake, The size of prey that a snake can hornbill, tenrec/hedgehog eat is determined by the size of Doing the activity the snake. A snake cannot Hornbill swallow an animal that is larger Diet consists mostly of ripe fruit around than the largest part of and insects their own body. Can catch insects in flight (can demo this with a piece of balled- Hedgehog up newspaper). Will then rub the Specialty eaters – insectivores insect against a branch to break Teeth are sharp and uniform – up the exoskeleton before good size for biting through swallowing insect exoskeletons. Will fly to the front line of a Long whiskers on face serve as brush/grass fire and catch insects sensory organs for locating prey and small reptiles that are fleeing like crickets, beetles, and other the fire (have special eyelash-like arthropods. feathers to keep soot out of their Sense of smell is also acute and eyes during this) used to sniff out food or danger! While female is sitting on eggs, the male will feed her and, Armadillo eventually the young be Armadillos dig into insect catching/picking food and colonies and bark with their bringing it back to the nest. strong front claws to feed on ants and termites. Most species forage for food in Snake the early morning and spend a Are carnivores and, as adults, can good portion of the rest of the feed on a variety of animals such day sleeping in burrows they as rodents, birds, even other have dug. snakes! (food choice depends on They have very poor eyesight, species of snake). and utilize their keen sense of Use constriction to subdue their smell to hunt. prey then swallow whole, usually Strong legs and huge front claws head-first are used for digging, and long, Teeth are small, sharp, and all the sticky tongues for extracting ants same size/shape and are re- and termites from their tunnels. curved meaning that they point In addition to bugs, armadillos backward to prevent prey from may eat small vertebrates, plants, escaping. and some fruit, as well as the occasional carrion meal. What’s For Dinner?, March 2011 Page 4 of 5 Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden Go on a scavenger hunt at a local Wrap up park or the Zoo and see how Thank kids for listening and wash hands. many herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores you can find. Craft Time – Dinner Plates Getting ready Resources You will need: whole paper plate with Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden: hole drilled in center, paper plate with http://www.cincinnatizoo.org/animals/m two wedges (opposite of each other) cut ammals/RedPanda.html out and hole drilled in center, brads, gluesticks, pictures of herbivore, National Geographic: omnivore, and carnivore, http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/a crayons/markers nimals/mammals/armadillo/ Doing the activity Smithsonian National Zoo: 1. Review with the group what http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Small herbivores, carnivores, and Mammals/fact-3bandarmadillo.cfm omnivores liked to eat. Explain that you are going to make dinner plates for these animals. 2. Next, pass out one of each kind of paper plate to each child.
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