If you have animal lovers in your class, especially dinosaur fanatics, you may have some students who find it intriguing and fun to learn the scientific names of animals. Beginning in early grades, students are introduced to the classification of living things. However, lessons in the lower grades usually focus on the main classes of animals (mammals, birds, fish, etc.). The eight distinct taxonomic categories are not introduced until later years, and certainly not binomial nomenclature, the system used for coming up with scientific names, which fascinates many students.
A more advanced study of taxonomy can enhance the curriculum for high-ability and gifted students. Many great resources are available that can be used with younger students, and it’s the WAY in which the resources are used that raises the level of a lesson. Here are a few ideas.
To introduce the seven main categories of living things – KINGDOM, PHYLUM, CLASS, ORDER, FAMILY, GENUS and SPECIES, you might want to prepare animal sorting cards and have students group animals. Use the sorting activity to question students and determine what they already know about the classification of living things. After they easily sort into mammals, birds, etc., ask them what characteristics are different from group to group. Then ask them if they could divide each group into smaller groups. Have students give examples of characteristics that might distinguish one type of bird from another, for example. Ask if they know any scientific names of animals and how those names are determined. Animal sorting cards can be downloaded free of charge here (p. 2 only).
This MENSA FOR KIDS unit has additional ideas for introducing taxonomy. Depending on your students’ level, you can use and adapt most of the activities to present the seven main categories. If you have access to Brain Pop lessons, there is also a video with activities introducing the classification of living things. For more advanced students, you may want to adapt this activity. Once the students know the categories, you may also want to challenge them to memorize the categories using a mnemonic such as “King Phillip came over for good spaghetti.”
This “Alien Animal” lesson is my adaptation of the “create your own animal” activity in the MENSA unit. It usually spanned at least two class periods. I wanted to incorporate some Latin and require students to come up with their own distinguishing characteristics. Rather than the KINGDOM being “Animalia,” we called it “ALIENANIMALIA,” and together we decided on characteristics for all categories of alien creatures. Each student then came up with a GENUS, SPECIES and scientific name for an original alien animal. Students’ drawings of their creatures had to show the characteristics included in the entire taxonomy.
You can find the lesson and everything needed for the activity here. Make a copy to edit or revise it to suit your needs. If you do this activity, please send me a MESSAGE. I would love to share photos of your students’ work in this post! You can also find activities for teaching Greek and Latin roots HERE, including a fun introductory slide show for the start of the year!
If you’d to see additional resources for gifted and advanced students, check out the lists under each grade level in the menu bar above. Also, you can subscribe to this site if you’d like more lesson ideas sent your way about twice a month!