A look at the grade 2 lessons :
Grade 2 science (NSO) : Animals
Animals and the way they eat
Herbivores : Animals like cows , buffaloes , sheep etc., that eat plants.
Carnivores : Animals like lions, tigers, etc., that prey on and eat other animals.
Omnivores : Animals like bears, crows etc., that eat both plants and animals.
Scavengers : Animals like vultures and jackals that eat dead and left over animals generally preyed on by carnivores.
Feeding habits of different animals
- Animals like squirrels, rabbits and rats feed on hard grains and nuts. They bite these hard nuts with very sharp front cutting teeth. This is called Gnawing.
- Animals like snakes do not have chewing teeth, they do not chew their food instead they swallow their food whole.
- Animals like frogs have a long sticky tongue to catch its prey. When a frog spots an insect, it sticks out its tongue and catches its prey, then it rolls back its tongue back into its mouth.
- Insects like bees and butterflies have a long tube to suck nectar from plants.
- Animals like cows and buffaloes have a special way of eating their food, they first swallow their food whole and fill their stomach, later they bring it back into their mouth and keep chewing it for hours. This is known as chewing the cud.
- Dogs and cats use their tongue to lap up their food.
- There are some animals like giraffe that use their long necks and the elephant that uses it’s trunk to take in food.
Food chain
All plants and animals are part of a food chain. A food chain is the sequence of who eats whom in a biological community (an ecosystem) to obtain nutrition. It starts with the primary source where producers make food, continues with consumers or animals who eat the food, and ends with the top predator.
Example of food chain :
- Butterfly – small birds – fox
- Carrots – rabbit – snake – eagle
- Corn – chick – snake – man
- Dead plants – centipede – robin
- Decayed plants – worms – birds – eagle
- Fruits – bats – eagles
- Fruits – monkeys – monkey-eating eagle
- Grass – antelope – tiger – vulture
- Grass – earthworms – bird – snake
- Grass – grasshopper – frog – snake – eagle
- Leaves – caterpillar – birds – snake
- Leaves – giraffes – lion
- Sun – bamboo – pandas
- Sun – eucalyptus leaves – koalas
- Sun – grass – mice – lion
- Sun – grass – zebra – lion
Exchange of gases (how different animal breathe)
