Every animal needs food, but not every animal eats the same food or eats it in the same way. This guide explains the eating habits of animals in simple words for Class 3 students, parents and teachers. It goes with the Eating Habits of Animals worksheet for Class 3 on this page and covers what animals eat, the four kinds of eaters, teeth, beaks, tongues and trunks, and the different ways animals take in food.

Introduction to NCERT Class 3 Science Eating Habits of Animals

Book: Our Wondrous World (The World Around Us), the NCERT textbook for Grade 3. Topic: Eating Habits of Animals. Board: CBSE and other schools that follow NCERT. The new NCERT book teaches this idea through its chapters on plants and animals living together. This page is built around the learning goals schools test for the topic; it is not a copy of a single chapter.

What is there in this topic

• Why animals need food: energy, growth and staying healthy
• Herbivores, carnivores, omnivores and scavengers
• Teeth for cutting, tearing and grinding
• Beaks shaped for different foods
• Special body parts: sticky tongues, trunks, long necks and sucking tubes
• Ways of eating: chewing, chewing the cud, gnawing, tearing, swallowing whole, sucking and lapping
• Simple food chains that show who eats whom

Learning objectives

These objectives are written for this page from the topic's goals; they are not copied from the NCERT book.

• Group animals as herbivores, carnivores, omnivores or scavengers from what they eat.
• Connect the shape of teeth or beaks with the food an animal eats.
• Describe how animals such as the cow, squirrel, snake, frog, butterfly and cat take in food.
• Explain chewing the cud.
• Build simple three-step food chains.

Learning outcomes

After this page a child can:

• Sort 10 or more animals by what they eat.
• Say which teeth a cow and a tiger have and why.
• Match six birds to the jobs their beaks do.
• Name the way each of six animals eats.
• Put the links of a food chain in the right order.

Eating Habits of Animals Class 3 resources on this page

Four kinds of eaters

Teeth tell us what an animal eats

Beaks are tools

Ways of eating

Types of questions

• Sort animals as herbivores, carnivores or omnivores
• Match teeth or beaks to food
• Fill in the blanks: cud, gnaws, swallows, sucks
• Count the herbivores or meat-eaters in a picture
• Build or fix a food chain
• Reason questions: why does a cow chew the cud?

Solved examples

Common mistakes

Daily life

Watch a cow chewing while it rests, a cat lapping milk, ants carrying grains or a sunbird at a flower. Feeding pets the right food and never feeding wild animals junk food comes from understanding eating habits.

What your child learns from the Eating Habits of Animals worksheet

• To observe body parts and link them to food
• To sort and group, a key science skill
• To think about who depends on whom in nature
• To care for animals by knowing what they eat

Tips for parents and teachers

• Visit a park or zoo and note what each animal eats and how.
• Try the beak tool experiment at home with tweezers, a straw and a strainer.
• Ask the child to explain every answer in one full sentence.
• Use the Feeding Lab to discuss surprising cases like the crow and the bear.
• Let the child retry the challenges to earn 3 stars.