4th grade · Science · Unit 1 of 8
Sense & Respond
How living things react
What your child practices
How people, animals and plants sense and respond to their environment: the nervous system, reflexes, special animal senses and plant responses to light, gravity and touch.
Maine Learning Results learning standard: 4-LS1-1; 4-LS1-2 · how living things sense their surroundings and respond
How we explain it
Children can open this short lesson before they practice.
- Your senses notice things: eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin.
- Nerves carry a message to your brain. Your brain decides, then your muscles move.
- A reflex is extra fast: the message goes to your spinal cord and straight back.
- Some animals have special senses, like bats hearing echoes or sharks sensing electric signals.
Example: You smell smoke. What happens first? Something must notice the smoke before your brain can act. Your nose senses the smell, then nerves carry the message to your brain. Answer: your nose senses the smoke
Sense & Respond in Maine
In the Maine Learning Results, this is unit 1 of 8 in 4th grade Science, before Light.
Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.
Source: Maine Department of Education
Sample questions
A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.
Question 1
The school bell rings. Put the steps of your response in order.
- ⚡Nerves carry a message to your brain
- 🧠Your brain decides what to do
- 🏃Your muscles move you to line up
- 👂Your ears sense the sound
Your ears sense the sound → Nerves carry a message to your brain → Your brain decides what to do → Your muscles move you to line up
Hint: Your senses notice first. Nerves carry the message to your brain, your brain decides, then your muscles move.
Question 2
A Venus flytrap snaps shut when an insect touches tiny hairs inside it. What is the stimulus?
🪰- The soil around the roots
- The green color of the leaf
- The insect touching the hairs
- The trap snapping shut
The insect touching the hairs
Hint: The stimulus is what the plant senses. The response is what the plant does.
Question 3
A shark can find a fish hiding under the sand. Which special sense helps?
🦈- Feeling the sun's heat
- Sensing tiny electric signals from the fish
- Using echoes like a bat
- Seeing right through the sand
Sensing tiny electric signals from the fish
Hint: Every animal's muscles give off tiny electric signals. Sharks have special spots on their snouts that sense them.
Question 4
Who is responding: a plant or an animal? Tap an item, then tap its basket.
Sort into: 🪴 plant · 🐾 animal
- 🦇bat hibernates in a cave
- 🍂tree drops its leaves in autumn
- 🐕dog wags its tail when you get home
- 🌱roots grow down into the soil
- 🪟stem bends toward a sunny window
- 🐈cat's pupils shrink in bright light
🪴 plant: tree drops its leaves in autumn, roots grow down into the soil, stem bends toward a sunny window · 🐾 animal: bat hibernates in a cave, dog wags its tail when you get home, cat's pupils shrink in bright light
Hint: Plants respond slowly, by growing, bending or dropping leaves. Animals can move their whole bodies, change their fur, or sleep through winter.
Question 5
A plant on a windowsill slowly bends toward the window. What is it responding to?
🪴- 🍳the smell of the kitchen
- 🎨the color of its pot
- 🔊sound
- ☀️light
☀️ light
Hint: Plants need light to make food, so their stems grow toward the light.
Question 6
On a hot day, your body sweats. How does sweating help you?
🥵- It makes you grow taller
- It warms you up
- It helps you hear better
- It cools you down
It cools you down
Hint: When sweat dries on your skin, it carries heat away. That's your body responding to heat!