• Quick retrieval from earlier learning (Senses send information to the brain, which decides what to do). Students answer on mini whiteboards.
• Show answers together and note who needs support in the main task.

1. What does this sense organ detect: eyes? (touch, pressure, heat and cold / smells (chemicals in the air) / light / tastes (chemicals in food)) → lightPrompt: Each sense organ detects one kind of information.
2. How does information get from your fingertips to your brain? (through your bones / through the air / through the blood / along nerves, as electrical signals) → along nerves, as electrical signalsPrompt: Nerves are like wires running through your body.
3. What does this sense organ detect: nose? (sound / smells (chemicals in the air) / light / tastes (chemicals in food)) → smells (chemicals in the air)Prompt: Each sense organ detects one kind of information.

• Show a picture of an unusual animal and ask where it might live and how it survives there.
• Share the objective: Animal senses: echolocation, heat-sensing and more. Read the success criteria together.

• Work through the example out loud, saying why you do each step, not just what you do.
• Example: Which special sense does this animal use: rattlesnake (pit viper)?
• Step 1: It can strike warm mice in the dark.
• Step 2: So the answer is: heat-sensing pits that "see" warm prey
• Answer: heat-sensing pits that "see" warm prey
• Pause after each step and ask a student to say what comes next.

• Do these together. Students try each step on whiteboards before you reveal it.
• Use the hints as prompts rather than giving the answer.

1. Which special sense does this animal use: honeybee? (senses tiny electric signals from muscles of hidden fish / tastes with its feet / sees ultraviolet patterns on flowers / heat-sensing pits that "see" warm prey) → sees ultraviolet patterns on flowersPrompt: Think about where it lives and how it finds food.
2. Dogs are used to find people trapped after earthquakes. Why? (They can see through rubble. / Their sense of smell is far stronger than ours. / They can hear radio waves. / They taste the air.) → Their sense of smell is far stronger than ours.Prompt: How do dogs follow a trail?

• Students work on the student sheet. Circulate and check the first two answers of every student early.
• Students who finish: write a question of their own for a partner, with the answer.

The 6 questions are on the student sheet below, with answers in the key.

• Two questions on their own. Sort answers into got it / nearly / not yet to plan the next lesson.

1. Dogs are used to find people trapped after earthquakes. Why? (They can hear radio waves. / They can see through rubble. / Their sense of smell is far stronger than ours. / They taste the air.) → Their sense of smell is far stronger than ours.Prompt: How do dogs follow a trail?
2. True or false? Some animals sense things that humans cannot, such as ultraviolet light. (True / False) → TruePrompt: Match the sense to how the animal lives.

Free online practice with hints and printable worksheets for this skill: eurekami.com/science/grade-4.