Overview Animals are living things that frequently interact with human beings. There are different kinds of animals, domesticated and in the wild. Children can recognize the animals they see around or those they see when they visit a zoo. Children may have their own way of classifying animals.

Purpose The purpose of this lesson is to enable children carry out simple categorization of animals drawn on cards. The children will learn that that classifying things is a scientific process.

Objectives Students will be able to:

iii. Classify animals into mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, and amphibians.

Resources/Materials Several picture of animals to include animals from the five categories in objective (iii) above. The teacher may collect these pictures from old magazines and Newspapers. Cut them out and paste them on card board papers.

Activities and Procedures

i. Discuss with children the process of separating animals into groups or categories so that they are more easily studied and discussed by scientists and others. Explain that the activity will help students learn about the categories of animals. * Do not give any clues at this time as to how animals are to be categorized. Children may come up with their own unique system of grouping.

ii. Divide the children into small groups of 3?5. Give each child several pictures of animals. Children in each group look through the pictures and divide their pile of pictures into 5?7 smaller categories. This is done through small group discussion and consensus.

iii. After each group has categorized their pictures, bring the entire class back together and let have one person from each group explain why they grouped their pictures as they did. They will come up with groupings by color, size, shape, extinct or not, eating habits, living habits, size of ears and tails, etc. They will come up with categories you and I would never dream of!

iv. Draw the attention of the children to live animals that can be observed outdoors.

Tying it all together Different categories can be used to categorize animals into groups. Apart from the well-known categories, children can come up with categories outside the five. The teacher should seize the opportunity to encourage initiatives among the children. Assessment The teacher should note which children come up with unique categorization of the animals. The teacher should also find out which animals have been categorized into more than one group.

Suggestions/Modifications

• Instructor may want to introduce the concept of categories and provide examples.
• Students should comprehend the need for categories and how their usage is helpful in identifying and distinguishing different animals.
• Students and instructor may write letters to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and other conservationist organizations to request information, posters, and flyers.