Classifying Vertebrate Animals

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I love unplanned activities.  Mavi would always resort to this activity whenever he’s bored on Fridays (swimming lessons were moved on Saturdays).  I like that he can do this activity independently, while learning the important characters of animals that belong in each group.

I believe that it is important for the child to have a clear and defined idea of the classes of the animal kingdom and its division.  What’s important to me is to have him gain the knowledge with this activity rather than reading and memorizing the difference in books. 

Just by looking at the animal cards or the figures it is obvious that birds differ from fish or that the turtles differ from mammals because only mammals nourished their young by milk through the breast of the mother.

So this is what I usually do, we either work on picture cards as seen above, or work using our basket of animal figures and have Mavi sort them as he describes why that animal belongs to mammals, fish, birds, reptiles or amphibians.  This is a wonderful activity on rainy days or winter!  How fascinating that my son is glued every time he does this.

Easy to prepare yet fun to perform!

Animal figures used are from Schliech and Safari toob.  The cards are from Vertebrate Sorting Cards file.

Don’t forget to PIN this for future reference!