5 Simple Yet Fun Food Chain Activities

Hey there, teacher – looking for food chain activities?

I got you covered!

Food chains is a super fun unit to teach, and kids get excited because it involves animals (isn’t it funny how animals make everything more fun?!).

The vocabulary can get challenging for students, so practicing and reviewing the vocab with different activities can make a huge difference in food chains “clicking” for students.

Get ready to ignite student imaginations and have a blast while exploring food chains with these awesome activities!

Don’t forget to grab your FREE Reason for the Seasons craft below 🙂

Idea #1: Make a HUMAN food chain!

This one is fun and super hands–on!

Students will BE the food chain!

No, this does not mean that we will have a hot dog eating contest 🙂

Although I’ll be honest, that sounds really fun.

Divide students into various groups (producers, consumers, decomposers).

You can either pick a kid to be the sun, or you can be the sun!

Give students 20 minutes to create costumes for their part (OR have them create a costume at home and bring it in the next day).

It can be as simple as them holding up a sign that says “oak tree” or creating wings to be a bird!

You could also skip the costume part and just give kids an index card to write down what they are.

Go outside where there’s some space, like the basketball blacktop or soccer field.

Have students get into an actual food chain formation, then use a ball to show the “Passing” of energy from student to student.

How fun is that?!

Idea #2: Bring in some color to your food chains activities!

I created a set of food chain color-by-number worksheets specifically for students to learn and review food chains!

How do they work?

First, students answer a set of questions about food chains.

Next, students use their answer choices to color in their black–and–white pictures.

How stinking fun is that?! 

It’s a worksheet that is ACTUALLY fun and engaging!

This set of 7 printable pages includes the following:

• 1 food chains worksheet reading a passage and answering questions on food chains
• 1 food chains worksheet matching vocabulary words to definitions (photosynthesis, the Sun, producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, decomposer)
• 2 food chains worksheets identifying if the animal/plant is a consumer or producer
• 1 food chains worksheets identifying if the animal is a primary consumer or secondary consumer
• 2 food chains worksheets labeling a food chain

Click HERE to grab these color-by-number worksheets!

Idea #3: Puppet show

The only supplies that you need for a puppet show are popsicle sticks.

Students will use paper, tape, scissors, and colored pencils/crayons/markers to create their own parts of a food chain.

Give them about 20 minutes to create their animals, plants, sun, and decomposers, then about 5 more minutes to practice their show.

Put them into groups of 4 to present their shows!

Idea #4: Relay drawing food chain activities!

Divide students into small groups of 3 or 4.

Each group gets a piece of poster board divided into four parts.

Each round will be 3 minutes long.

Give students 2 minutes, and say to draw the first part of a food chain (hint… everyone should be drawing a sun!).

Rotate posterboards to the right.

Give students 3 minutes, and say to draw the next part of the food chain.

Keep going with this, until you hit decomposers!

The original group will get their posterboards back, and they’ll label each part with words like producer, consumer, and decomposer and add in arrows to show the flow of energy.

These are fun to display later around the room!

Idea #5: Skits

Kids LOVE this one!

Kids will create a quick skit demonstrating their knowledge on the food chain!

Put students into groups, and tell them to create a skit showing the food chain.

You’ll be shocked at how creative they are and what they come up with!

Tell them they need to use the vocabulary words Sun, producer, consumer, and decomposer somewhere within their skit.

This is a great activity for a Friday afternoon when energy is high and a tad bit silly 🙂

Need more FOOD CHAINS resources?

I have many food chain resources available at Glitter in Third on TPT.

Click the links below to check them out:

• Food Chains Color By Number Worksheets
• Food Chains Interactive Notebook
• Food Chains for Google Classroom

Want a FREE rotation & revolution activity?

I have a FUN craft to help your students understand the Earth’s revolution.

The best part?

It’s FREE!

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You can also read more about rotation and revolution activities in my blog post HERE.