Feathers, fins, fur, scales, and skin

Using observation, students will identify animal groups by their appearance. The students will move through animal centers looking for similarities and differences of birds, fish, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.

A lesson plan for grades K–1 Science

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Learning outcomes

Students will identify animal similarities and differences by appearances, growth, and internal attributes.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

75 minutes

Materials/resources

• An example of each animal group makes this process more exciting, but pictures or plastic models of animals can be used. The week before this lesson, I asked for student volunteers to bring their pets from home. Animal members from the mammal, reptile, fish, bird, and amphibian groups are needed.
• The teacher will have to prepare various hands-on materials, copies of attachment, see below.
• The teacher will have to acquire illustrations of attributes from various resource books and websites to enhance the identification of animals. See supplements.
• A plastic classification grid map (four-by-eight-foot) or white board with a grid drawn on it will be needed.

Pre-activities

Students will have had to be exposed to common pets and their environments.

Activities

1. The teacher will introduce each of the five animal groups and their five attributes to the class as a whole. Each attribute will be explained at this point. For example, cold-blooded will be described as an animal whose inside body temperature changes with the outside temperature. Warm-blooded animals need to keep their inside body temperature the same all the time. When it gets cold outside, a dog will go into his house to stay warm. The teacher will show the students the outside covering of the animals and the environment they live in; for example, a dog can live in a human house or a dog house outside. A salamander must have water and land to survive. A bird can live in a tree or in a cage. The students will be shown a cat nursing her kittens and the difference in skull size relative to their body size, showing that mammals have a relatively well-developed brain. See attachment for list of animal groups and their attributes. Pictures will be used instead of text for the kindergarten and first grade levels.
2. The teacher will make five centers in the classroom. Each center will contain an animal group. The center will contain:
   • the animal
   • posters describing the group
   • pictures of all the attributes
   • books
   • magazines
   • looky-looky jars (jars with dead fish or humming birds in them)
   • snake skins
   • or anything else that will relate to that animal group

   The class will be divided into five groups. The students will spend five minutes observing and feeling at each center and the teacher will tell the mammal group to move to the reptiles and so on around the room, until every group has been to every center.

3. The teacher will provide a whole class review of attributes, showing the pictures that represent the individual attributes and the animal group they belong to.
4. The class will be put in a circle sitting cross-legged around the plastic classification grid. A plastic model of each animal group will be put at the end of each category column. Each student will be given a picture of an attribute. The teacher calls the students off her list and asked them to place their picture under the correct animal group.

Assessment

The teacher has a checklist of each student’s name. As the student locates his animal group, the teacher marks a check by his name. If time is permitting, the pictures can be redistributed and a second cycle of the assessment can take place.

A second grid can be used to show which animal groups have similar attributes. Attributes that appear under several animal groups can be used as the column titles and animal groups can be put in these categories.

Supplemental information

Basic science books will provide the necessary graphics.

Comments

Young children are always amazed when I tell them they are animals. I guess it makes them uncomfortable to think they are so closely linked with such wild things. For this reason I like to let them know that we aren’t so different after all.