Animal Classification

For the last week and half we have been working on animal classification. Your kids knowledge and insight about classification and sorting has amazed me. They are such curious and deep thinkers.

As we were sharing what we knew about reptiles, amphibians, mammals, fish and birds they noticed many similarities and differences.

Here are some of the things your kiddos had to say...

"Fish are the only animals that breathe with gills, all the other animals breathe with lungs."

"Mammals are the only animals that give milk to their young."

"Mammals and birds are warm-blooded and reptiles, amphibians and fish are cold-blooded."

"Amphibians, fish and birds lay eggs."

"Amphibians, reptiles, fish, birds and mammals all have different body coverings."

I am already so impressed about how much your child has learned so far this year!

Some of the words we are learning are:
Taxonomy- which is the classification process that scientists use to help sort animals.
Kingdom- every living thing is sorted into one of five kingdoms. (We have talked about the plant kingdom and we are focusing on the animal kingdom.)

Within the animal kingdom, we are talking about animals that have a backbone or spine, which fall into the Phylum: Chordata.

Within the Chordata animals they are 5 Classes of animals. The Classes are reptiles, amphibians, fish, mammals and birds.

Are expedition will be mainly focused on frogs, however, we will be exploring fish and reptiles more in depth. To understand how frogs (amphibians) are different then fish and reptiles.