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Minibeasts in the food chain

Minibeasts in the food chain: simple garden food chains. A caterpillar eats a leaf, a bird eats the caterpillar. The idea that minibeasts are food for other animals, and that minibeasts eat things too.

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What a learner can do afterwards

  • Describe a simple food chain such as leaf → caterpillar → bird
  • Explain that minibeasts eat plants or other tiny creatures and are eaten by bigger animals
  • Give an example of what a specific minibeast eats, such as caterpillars eating leaves or ladybirds eating aphids

The lesson

Every living thing needs food to grow. Minibeasts eat plants or tiny creatures. Then bigger animals eat the minibeasts. This chain of eating is called a food chain.

leafcaterpillarbird
Leaf, then caterpillar, then bird. Each one is food for the next.
Try it together

A ladybird eats tiny aphids on a leaf. A bird might eat the ladybird next. Every minibeast has its place in the chain.

aphidladybirdbird
Good to know

Try this: think what a minibeast eats. Then think what might eat that minibeast.

In a food chain, each thing gives food to the next.

Watch it

Where it sits

Where this leads

Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.

Then practise

8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.

Minibeasts in the food chain · Science, ages 5 to 7 · LightMySky