Mrs Mactivity

Year 2 Science Block 4: Animals Including Humans - Basic Needs

Year 2 Animals Including Humans – Basic Needs

Teach Year 2 Animals Including Humans – Basic Needs with a complete unit exploring what animals, including humans, need in order to survive. Pupils learn that water, food and air are essential for life and begin to understand how animals meet these needs in different environments. Lessons are practical and enquiry-led, giving pupils regular opportunities to observe closely, ask simple questions and carry out their own investigations.

View small steps and unit outcomes

Small steps

  • What are needs and wants?
  • Why is water needed for survival?
  • Why is food needed for survival?
  • What do animals in our local environment eat?
  • How do animals use their senses to survive? (badgers)
  • How do animals use their senses to survive? (peregrine falcons)

Unit outcomes (secure)

Animals including humans

  • Find out about and describe the basic needs of animals, including humans, for survival (water, food and air)
  • Understand that animals obtain food and water from their environment
  • Describe how animals use their senses to help them survive

Working scientifically

  • Asking simple questions and recognising that they can be answered in different ways
  • Observing closely, using simple equipment
  • Performing simple tests
  • Using observations to suggest answers to questions
  • Gathering and recording data to help answer questions

Year 2 Animals Including Humans – Basic Needs lesson plans and worksheets

Teach Year 2 Animals Including Humans – Basic Needs with a fully planned and sequenced unit aligned with the KS1 science curriculum. This unit supports pupils to understand that animals, including humans, need water, food and air to survive, and helps them explore how these needs are met in the real world.
Pupils begin by distinguishing between needs and wants before investigating why water and food are essential for survival. They plan and carry out a simple outdoor investigation to find out what animals in their local environment eat, make and test their own water filters, and explore how animals such as badgers and peregrine falcons use their senses to survive.

What’s included?

  • Step-by-step planning for all six lessons
  • Interactive Year 2 science PowerPoint slides for each lesson
  • Differentiated Year 2 Animals Including Humans – Basic Needs worksheets
  • Knowledge organisers with key vocabulary and scientific facts
  • Practical investigations, outdoor activities and structured discussions
  • Built-in assessment opportunities to check understanding

Hands-on investigations and activities

  • Sorting and discussing needs and wants in humans and animals
  • Making and testing a simple water filter to explore how water is cleaned
  • Investigating what local animals eat using evidence and observation
  • Matching foods to survival functions such as energy, warmth and growth
  • Exploring how badgers use smell, touch and hearing to survive
  • Investigating how peregrine falcons use sight and touch when hunting

Scientific vocabulary

  • Needs, wants, survival, water, food, air, oxygen, warmth
  • Filter, purify, drought, investigation, observe
  • Energy, fat, vitamins and minerals, protein
  • Senses, smell, sight, hearing, touch
  • Local environment, red fox, wood mouse, black garden ant

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