View largerFood chain poster for 3rd grade
Describing a food chain with producers and consumers, and what the arrows mean
1 page156 KB
Food Chain Worksheets
Read and build food chains, sort producers, consumers and decomposers, find predators and prey, and follow the energy from the sun.
Download the food chains worksheets
What is a food chain?
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View all 2 pagesFood chain reading passage for 3rd grade
Reading an informational passage about how energy moves through a food chain
Answer key on page 2
2 pages47 KB
Build food chains
View all 2 pagesComplete the food chain worksheet for 3rd grade
Completing food chains by naming the missing producer or consumer
Answer key on page 2
2 pages579 KB
View all 2 pagesFood chain cut and paste worksheet for 3rd grade
Ordering living things into food chains from producer to top consumer
Answer key on page 2
2 pages515 KB
View all 2 pagesFood chain order Worksheet: number the living things
Ordering living things into food chains from producer to top consumer
Answer key on page 2
2 pages488 KB
Roles in a food chain
View all 2 pagesProducers, consumers and decomposers sort
Classifying living things as producers, consumers or decomposers
Answer key on page 2
2 pages488 KB
View all 2 pagesPredator and prey worksheet for 3rd grade
Identifying the predator and the prey in pairs of animals
Answer key on page 2
2 pages521 KB
View all 2 pagesFood chains quiz for 3rd grade
Reviewing producers, consumers, decomposers and food chains
Answer key on page 2
2 pages39 KB
Print at 100% (actual size) for the cleanest tracing lines.
About these food chains worksheets
A food chain shows what eats what. Grass makes its own food from sunlight, a cricket eats the grass, a frog eats the cricket, and the energy keeps moving up the chain. Third graders learn to read the arrows, name producers and consumers, and see why decomposers matter.
These food chain worksheets include a poster, a complete-the-chain page with a word bank, a cut and paste page with its no-cut twin, a producer, consumer or decomposer sort, a predator and prey page and a reading passage about how energy moves in a meadow.
Every page is black and white, prints on US Letter or A4, and every page with right answers has an answer key on page 2.
Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.3Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.4Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 3 topic or subject area.NGSS 3-LS4-3Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
How to use them
- Read the poster aloud and trace the arrows with a finger: from the food to the eater.
- Act out a food chain with name cards and a ball of yarn passed from eaten to eater.
- Use the cut and paste page or its no-cut twin, then the complete-the-chain page.
- Sort producers, consumers and decomposers, and talk about what happens to fallen leaves.
- Finish with Follow the Energy and the quiz.
Teaching tips
- Arrows point from the living thing that is eaten to the one that eats it: the way the energy moves.
- Producers make their own food (plants, seaweed). Consumers eat other living things. Decomposers (mushrooms, worms, bacteria) break down dead matter.
- Predators hunt prey. Many animals are both: a frog is a predator of crickets and prey for snakes.
- Real ecosystems are food webs, with many chains joined together.
- Food chains are a common extension in 3rd grade; they connect to the standard on how animals survive in a habitat.
Questions teachers and parents ask
Which way do the arrows go in a food chain?
Arrows point from the food to the eater. In grass → rabbit → fox, the arrow points from the grass to the rabbit because the rabbit eats the grass and gets its energy.
What is the difference between a producer and a consumer?
A producer, like a plant, makes its own food using sunlight. A consumer, like an animal, gets energy by eating plants or other animals.
What do decomposers do?
Decomposers such as mushrooms, earthworms and bacteria break down dead plants and animals and return nutrients to the soil, which helps new plants grow.