Skip to the content
Peabody TeachFor teachers and grown-ups

The Food Chain

3rd grade nonfiction passage about ecosystems: 135 words, six questions, an answer key and vocabulary.

3rd grade nonfiction ecosystems 135 words

The Food Chain

Every living thing needs energy. A food chain shows how energy moves from one living thing to another when they are eaten.

Most food chains begin with a plant. A plant uses sunlight to make its own food, so it is called a producer. Grass is a producer.

An animal cannot make its own food. It is a consumer, because it eats other living things. A grasshopper eats grass. A frog eats the grasshopper. A snake eats the frog, and a hawk eats the snake. Animals that eat only plants are called herbivores. Animals that eat other animals are called carnivores.

What happens when a plant or an animal dies? Decomposers, such as mushrooms, worms, and tiny bacteria, break it down. They return nutrients to the soil, and new plants use the nutrients to grow.

Questions

  1. What does a food chain show? in the text

  2. Why is grass called a producer? in the text

  3. In the food chain in the passage, what does the frog eat? in the text

  4. What is the difference between a herbivore and a carnivore? in the text

  5. What do decomposers do? in the text

  6. What would probably happen to the frogs if all the grasshoppers disappeared? think about it

Words to know

producer
a living thing, such as a plant, that makes its own food
consumer
a living thing that eats other living things for food
herbivore
an animal that eats only plants
carnivore
an animal that eats other animals
decomposer
a living thing that breaks down dead plants and animals

How to use it

  1. Press Read it big (or B) to put the text on the projector, or Full screen (F) to fill the whole screen.
  2. Ask the questions one at a time and use Show answer when the class has decided. A shows or hides every answer.
  3. Print student copy for the class, or Print with answers for yourself.

Ideas for class

  • Before reading, put producer, consumer, herbivore, carnivore and decomposer on the board with their meanings from the Words to know section and have students predict what the text will be about.
  • Read it aloud once while students follow along, then have them reread it alone or with a partner. At a calm 100 words a minute it takes about 1 minute to read aloud.
  • Use the Read it big button (or B) to put the text on the projector, and Show answer on one question at a time so the class commits to an answer first.
  • Question 6 asks the reader to infer. Ask students to point to the words in the passage that led them to their answer.
  • Ask students to write one question the passage did not answer, then look for the answer in a book or on a classroom screen.
  • Print the student copy for independent work and keep the answer-key copy for yourself.

Related

Questions

What reading level is "The Food Chain"?

It was written for 3rd grade. It has 135 words and works out to a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of about 4.6. That is a formula's estimate from sentence length and syllables, and it is not a Lexile or a guided reading level, so check it against your students.

What do the questions ask?

There are six. 5 ask for something the text says directly and 1 ask the reader to work something out from clues. Each has an answer in the key, and the answers are written as a teacher would accept them, not as the only possible wording.

How long does it take to read?

About 1 minute read aloud at 100 words a minute. For a one-minute fluency check, paste it into the fluency timer and use the word count.

Can I print it?

Yes. Print student copy gives the passage, the questions with lines to write on, and the word meanings. Print with answers gives the same page with the answers filled in. Both are made in your browser.

Is this passage from a published book?

No. It was written for Peabody Teach, so there is no book to buy and no login to read it.

Nothing you do here is sent to us. No sign-in, no ads.