Animal Communication systems

We started off this week with a test of our noses - could we find a scent to match the scented paper we were given? Some were easy, some were difficult! This led us to a discussion on pheromones and how some animals use scent to communicate. We looked at how ants lay down a scent trail to show others in their colony where a food source is. We looked at scientific studies that have observed and analysed this behaviour. We thought about other ways animals might communicate and the things they might be needing to communicate. We compared this to how we communicate and thought of similarities and differences.


Some children chose to go outside and locate an ant colony and experiment with which foods they prefer by observing which food type they would go to more often. An exercise in patience and observation skills!

Some researched different communication types for various animals - just think about how a cat or dog communicates in so many ways - with their ears, tails, body, sounds, facial gestures etc. If you want to see an interesting communication type, just look up the peacock spider from Australia to see how it communicates!

Some children acted out communication forms of animals, some made kahoot quizzes, some created lift the flap pictures to show inside an ant colony or beehive. There are so many ways we can go deeper with our learning and stretch our thinking on a topic.