3rd Grade Producers and Consumers

3rd Grade Producers and Consumers Worksheet

Before students can read a food chain, they need to know where the energy comes from. This producers and consumers worksheet teaches that plants are producers that use sunlight to make their own food, while animals are consumers that get energy by eating plants or other animals. Students sort grass, an apple tree, a grasshopper, a frog, and a snake, then explain how each one gets energy.

Key Science Vocabulary

producer, consumer, energy, sunlight, food, organism

What's Inside

• Teach box with Sun and grass doodles
• Part A: label five organisms P (producer) or C (consumer)
• Part B: circle how plants, grasshoppers, and snakes get energy
• Answer key and teacher note

Standards

TEKS 3.12B (energy flow in a food chain). Builds toward NGSS 5-PS3-1 and 5-LS2-1, energy in food that starts with the Sun.

Teaching Tip

Ask, "What did you eat for breakfast, and what did that food eat?" Trace a cereal or egg back to a plant to show every food chain starts with a producer.