Year 3 - Animals, including humans

Take science outdoors with exciting, hands-on lessons exploring muscles, skeletons, nutrition, and food chains. From excavating skeletons and investigating muscle movement to creating balanced diets with natural resources, these active activities make biology memorable, practical, and fun.

Lesson Plans

Comparing diets of different animals

During this outdoor lesson, your class will work together in teams to learn more about animal food sources. They’ll also have the opportunity to use natural resources to show their understanding.

Learning objective:

To compare and contrast diets of different animals.

Understanding balanced nutrition

The main activity of this outdoor lesson requires children to think carefully about the proportions of food for a balanced diet. This is an easy to resource lesson that provides plenty of fun through scavenger hunts and natural loose parts usage.

Learning objective:

To identify food groups and balanced nutrition for humans.

Exploring the nutritional value of foods

Bring together science, maths and movement in the outdoor lesson. Your children will explore various foods’ nutritional value, then organise them in a tally chart.

Learning objective:

To explore the nutritional values of different foods.

Exploring different animal skeletons

Carry out an excavation during this unique outdoor lesson! Your children will need to work together to piece together pieces of skeleton they find and identify how they combine to create a skeleton.

Learning objective:

To identify animal skeletons.

Identifying bones in the human body

The main activity of this outdoor lesson gives your children the opportunity to have fun using natural resources and chalk to learn more about the human skeleton.

Learning objective:

To identify the bones in the human skeleton.

Investigating how muscles create movement

During this outdoor lesson, your children will complete a variety of exercises to think carefully about what happens to our muscles as we move. Concentrating on the contraction and relaxation of our arm muscles, children will carry out an investigation to find out what happens when our muscles shorten and lengthen.

Learning objective:

To understand how bones and muscles create movement.

Before you get started

Safety and sustainability is super important!