DINNER AT THE REEF – Extension Activities
Once you have finished playing ‘Dinner at the Reef’ you may want to engage your students further
with some more activities. There are six worksheets available which you can photocopy and distribute
to your students.
1. HOW MUCH PREY DO I NEED? (pages 2-5)
This is a numbers game, which involves simple maths to work out how many sources of food it takes
to support a predator at the top of the food chain. Students will each need a worksheet and pencils.
2. WHO EATS WHO? (page 6)
This worksheet is a simple linking game to pair species with their food sources. Students will each
need a worksheet and a pen/pencil. In order to help them find the correct answers, provide the
students with the ‘completed’ version of species cards.
3. WHO LIVES HERE? (page 7)
This worksheet is a simple linking game to pair species with their habitats. Students will each need a
worksheet and a pen/pencil. In order to help them find the correct answers, provide the students with
the ‘completed’ version of species cards.
4. SPECIES POETRY (pages 8-10)
This worksheet combines science with literacy. Get the students to choose a species card, from the
‘completed’ sets and encourage them to use the worksheet to create poetry based on their chosen
species. They can create a haiku, a limerick or an acrostic poem. They will each need a worksheet,
some paper and a pen/pencil.
5. DINNER AT THE REEF WORDSEARCH (page 11)
Students are asked to explore the wordsearch to find a selection of the words they were introduced to
during the Dinner at the Reef game. They will each need a worksheet and a pen/pencil.
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DINNER AT THE REEF - How much prey do I need?
How much food does it take to support a big predator at the top of the food chain?
In the ‘Dinner at the Reef’ game, each player has to catch two of their chosen prey to feed
themselves:



1 small fish needs 2 algae and plankton
1 big fish needs 2 small fish
1 shark needs 2 big fish
But, if the small fish does not have enough algae and plankton, they will not survive. This means that
the big fish might not have enough small fish to eat. If the big fish does not have enough food they will
not survive and so the sharks will not have enough to eat either.
This means that really 1 shark needs more than 2 big fish to survive. It also needs 4 small fish to feed
the 2 big fish and 8 algae and plankton to feed the 4 small fish.
You can work out how much prey it takes to sustain a shark by drawing diagrams like the ones below.
1. Use different sized circles to represent sharks, big fish, small fish and algae & plankton.
2. Draw a table with 4 rows.
3. Draw the number of sharks you are trying to feed in the top row:
1 Shark
4. For every shark, draw 2 big fish in the row below (and link them by drawing lines between
them):
1 Shark
2 Big Fish
2
5. Then for every big fish, draw 2 small fish in the row below that:
2 Big Fish
4 Small Fish
6. For every small fish, draw 2 algae & plankton in the row below that:
4 Small Fish
8 Algae & Plankton
7. Then, simply add up how many circles there are in each row:
1 Shark
2 Big Fish
4 Small Fish
8 Algae & Plankton
How much prey does it take to feed 1 shark?
So, for 1 shark you need 2 big fish, 4 small fish and 8 algae & plankton.
8. Add these together: 2 + 4 + 8 = 14 prey
3
14
4
Now you try it:
2 sharks
2 Sharks
Big Fish
Small Fish
Algae &
Plankton
How much prey does it take to feed 2 sharks?
3 sharks
3 Sharks
Big Fish
Small Fish
Algae &
Plankton
How much prey does it take to feed 3 sharks?
5
4 sharks
4 Sharks
Big Fish
Small Fish
Algae &
Plankton
How much prey does it take to feed 4 sharks?
5 sharks
5 Sharks
Big Fish
Small Fish
Algae &
Plankton
How much prey does it take to feed 5 sharks?
6
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DINNER AT THE REEF – Who eats who?
Look at the pictures to the right. In the first column there are four hungry creatures.
In the second column there are food sources which belong to each of these.
All you need to do is work out who eats what. Draw a line between the predator and
its prey.
DINNER AT THE REEF – Who lives here?
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Look at the picture on the right. There are four species that have lost their homes.
There are also four habitats.
Follow the tangled paths and find the right habitat for each species.
If you are stuck, look at the ‘Dinner at the Reef’ species cards to help you.
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DINNER AT THE REEF - Species Poetry worksheet
1. Choose a species card from the ‘Dinner at the Reef’ pack. The card shows you a
picture of your chosen species and gives details about where it lives, what it eats
and what threatens it.
2. Write a poem about your chosen species. You can choose from the different
types of poems below:
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Write a Haiku poem
Have you ever heard of a haiku? A haiku is a form of Japanese poetry. It is a short, three line poem
which is made up of 17 syllables. It doesn’t have to rhyme.
The 17 syllables are divided into three lines:
 The first line has 5 syllables
 The second line has 7 syllables
 The third line has 5 syllables
What is a syllable?
Syllables are the different beats of sound which make up a word. Each word has one, two,
three or more syllables e.g.
 Dog has 1 syllable: (Dog)
 Kitten has 2 syllables: (Kit-ten)
 Elephant has 3 syllables (El-e-phant)
Write a haiku poem about your favourite species. Like this one:
The shortfin mako
eats other sharks, but most of
all, it likes Swordfish!
Let’s count the syllables to be sure:
The – short – fin – ma – ko
1
2
3
4
5
Eats – oth – er – sharks – but – most – of
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
All – it – likes – sword – fish
1 2
3
4
5
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Write a Limerick poem
Limericks are 5 line poems which are bouncy and fun. They have a very specific rhyming pattern:
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
The last word of the first, second and fifth lines all rhyme with each other
The last word of the third and fourth lines both rhyme with each other
Limericks follow a pattern of syllables that goes:
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
Try writing a limerick about your species. Like this one:
There once was a coconut crab
Who ate all the leaves he could grab
A hunter caught him
A tourist bought him
To live on a shelf, which is drab
Now let’s check:

Do the first, second and fifth lines rhyme?
Yes – crab, grab and drab all rhyme.

Do the third and fourth lines rhyme?
Yes – caught him and bought him both rhyme.
Try reading it out loud by putting more stress on the syllables that should be a ‘DUM’ sound.
Write an Acrostic poem
If you take the first letter of each line of an acrostic poem, it will spell out a word. These poems don’t
have to rhyme but you can make them rhyme if you want to.
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1. Write the name of your chosen species vertically on a piece of paper e.g.
If your species is a ‘hogfish’, write the word like this:
H
O
G
F
I
S
H
2. Next, using the information on the species card, write a poem about your chosen species.
3. Use each letter in your word to start a new line. Like this one:
He lives in the Western Atlantic
On a patch of corals
Gastropods are his
Favourite food
Including slugs, snails and limpets
Sharks and toothed whales eat him
He is a popular aquarium pet
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DINNER AT THE REEF – Wordsearch
Look at the words below. Do you remember these words from the Dinner at the Reef
game? See if you can find them in the wordsearch grid. We have found the first one
for you.
T
Y
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ALGAE
AQUARIUM
BYCATCH
CHAIN
CLAM
CONSERVATION
CORAL
CRAB
CRITICAL
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SHRIMP
SPECIES
STINGRAY
SWORDFISH
THREAT
VULNERABLE
WHALE
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