• Quick retrieval from earlier learning (Decomposers and recycling nutrients). Students answer on mini whiteboards.
• Show answers together and note who needs support in the main task.

1. What do decomposers do? (break down dead plants and animals / pollinate flowers / make food from sunlight / hunt living animals) → break down dead plants and animalsPrompt: What happens to a fallen leaf over a few months?
2. Is a mushroom a producer, a consumer or a decomposer? (producer / consumer / decomposer) → decomposerPrompt: Does it make food, eat living things, or break down dead things?
3. Decomposers: which statement is NOT true? (Decomposition is faster when it is warm and moist. / Dead leaves just disappear on their own. / Decomposers return nutrients to the soil. / Fungi and bacteria are decomposers.) → Dead leaves just disappear on their own.Prompt: Why do we keep food in the fridge or freezer?

• Show a picture of an unusual animal and ask where it might live and how it survives there.
• Share the objective: Microorganisms: helpful and harmful. Read the success criteria together.

• Work through the example out loud, saying why you do each step, not just what you do.
• Example: Is this microorganism helpful or harmful: yeast making bread rise?
• Step 1: These microorganisms help us or the environment.
• Step 2: So the answer is: helpful
• Answer: helpful
• 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. Is this microorganism helpful or harmful: germs that cause a sore throat? (helpful / harmful) → harmfulPrompt: Does it help make food or recycle nutrients, or does it make people ill or spoil food?
2. How did Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin in 1928 help people? (It led to antibiotics, medicines that kill harmful bacteria. / It cured colds caused by viruses. / It made bread rise faster. / It made food last for ever.) → It led to antibiotics, medicines that kill harmful bacteria.Prompt: Penicillin came from a mould.

• 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 8 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. True or false? Microorganisms are living things too small to see without a microscope. (True / False) → TruePrompt: Think of bread, yoghurt, compost, germs and mould.
2. Is this microorganism helpful or harmful: yeast making bread rise? (helpful / harmful) → helpfulPrompt: Does it help make food or recycle nutrients, or does it make people ill or spoil food?

Free online practice with hints and printable worksheets for this skill: eurekami.com/science/grade-5.