How Sun Energy Moves Up a Meadow Food Chain, Order the Steps

Have your child draw the food chain from each page with arrows that point from the eaten to the eater. Ask where the energy started, which is almost always the sun. Check the sort and chart pages with the answer key.

Order 5 steps as sun energy moves from grass to a grasshopper, a mouse and a hawk, then explain loss. A meadow is a sunny, open field of grass and wildflowers. The directions on the page read: Read the passage. Look for the words that tell the order of the steps. Then, turn the page and fill in the flow chart. On page 2: Write the steps from the Step Bank in boxes 1 to 5 in order. Then, circle the letter of the best answer for question 6 and write the answers to questions 7 and 8 on the lines. The answer key covers the questions on page 2.

Yes, both. We made it for 5th Grade ecosystems, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with food webs. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

A food chain is one path of who eats whom, such as grass, grasshopper, mouse, hawk. A food web joins many chains in one place, so it shows how matter moves among all the plants, animals and decomposers there.

Producers, like giant kelp and grass, make their own food from sunlight. Consumers, like sea otters and rockfish, eat other living things. Decomposers, like bacteria and fungi, break down dead things into nutrients that producers use again.

At each step of a food chain, most of the energy is used up or lost as heat, so less is passed on. A meadow needs much more grass than grasshoppers and many more mice than hawks to keep the chain going.

Yes. All five food web sheets have an answer key, with sample answers for the questions children answer in their own words.

5 printable worksheets, all free to preview. Downloads are included with a ClassWeekly free trial, and every page prints on standard 8.5 x 11 paper.

These are written for 5th Grade students, roughly ages 10-11. Many teachers also use them a grade up for review or a grade down as an extension, so use the preview to judge the fit for a particular child.

Yes. Each one shows the NGSS code it covers on its own page, so you can check the alignment yourself rather than taking our word for it.