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| 10 |  Grade 4 / Classification of animals - invertebrates and vertebrates: fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals | |
| Developed by | Prosveta-Sofia Foundation | |
| Grade | 4 | |
| Duration | 60 | |
| Energizers |  3 - Amoeba An evolution game! Everyone starts off as an amoeba, with the purpose of evolving to a human. All students walk around acting like an amoeba and when they meet with another amoeba, they play one round of rock/paper/scissors. Whoever wins evolves into a worm. When two worms meet they play again rock/paper/scissors and whoever wins turns into a wasp, but whoever loses goes back to becoming an amoeba. This continues until one becomes human. The evolution stages are: amoeba à worm à wasp à chicken à monkey à human. | |
| Relaxing Exercises |  6 - Bee breathing The teacher instructs the students to get in a comfortable position to practice bee breathing. They have to imagine that they are sitting on a leaf or a flower petal, to sit straight and allow the leaf or petal to gently support them. The teacher gives students the following instructions: Breathe in, allowing the air to just gently come in through your nose, filling up your lungs. As you breathe out, buzz like a bee. See how long your buzz can last. See how far your bee is going to fly before sitting down and resting again. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. On the next breath, see if your bee can fly with a loud, strong buzz. On the next breath, see if your bee can fly with a soft buzz. When the exercise is finished, the teacher gives time for a short discussion: Does it feel different with a strong or a soft buzz? How does your body feel? Optional (use if time allows): After breathing practice, draw a picture of a bumblebee and the leaf or flower that you were “sitting on” in your imagination. This picture can be used as a relaxation practice reminder. When you see the picture, practice being like a Bee on a leaf and practice a Bee breath. | |
| Objectives | Students will:
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| Preparation | Equipment
Preparation 1. Print Handout 1 double-sided. 2. Print Handout 2 on thick paper or cardboard; make, if possible, color copies; print single-sided. Then cut the cards along the outline of the table and put the same cards together (the same colour cards). 3. Provide a large table to arrange the cards face down. | |
| Introduction | Do you like animals? Yes, we all love animals and they are part of our life. Animals come in all shapes, sizes, and colours, but do you know that they can also be grouped into different categories based on their similarities? This process of sorting and organizing animals is called classification. Scientists use a special system to classify animals. It helps us understand the relationships between different animals and how they are related to each other. This system has several levels of classification.
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| Teaching and learning methods | Learning through games and practical activities Group work | |
| Interdisciplinary connections | Mathematics – reasoning skills Physical education – the importance of incorporating movement games in the learning process Arts – creating a poster; presenting the characteristics of the animal groups in a creative way | |
| Resource teacher or other specialists activities | The lesson does not include written instructions and tasks in which a written response is created. The role of the resource teacher is to help target group students in case you cannot cope with a task or a particular step. Step 4 game is a hands-on activity that is engaging and interesting for students with learning disabilities (and beyond). The resource teacher can direct students to the group to which examples of animals they know belong. Creating the poster from step 6 is also a hands-on activity in which the students of the target group can be actively involved. | |
| New vocabulary | Invertebrates Vertebrates Amphibians Reptiles Mammals | |
| Work Flow | Step 1 Students watch the video – classification of animals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLI0re6P-iA Step 2 Students play games which teach them the major characteristics of the six groups of animals. The characteristics are not explained in advance. Students will learn them by playing the games several times.
Students have 2 minutes to play each game as many times as they can without recording their names in the leader board; this is a preparation for the final rounds which count for ranking the best players. (10 min) Step 3 Students compete in the final rounds of the 5 games for vertebrate animals. The teacher instructs the students to launch:
and write their names in the leader board when they finish answering the questions. The student who is ranked as the 1st one on the leader board receives a notice board with the word FISH written on it (Handout 1, p.1 and 2) and does not participate in the following games. Similarly, students compete in the game Amphibians https://wordwall.net/resource/72148764 and write their names in the leader board; the winner receives a notice board with the word AMPHIBIANS written on it (Handout 1, p.3 and 4) and does not participate in the rest of the games.
At the end of Step 3 you will have 5 students (who were the winners in the five games) and who are holding plates with the names of the 5 groups of (vertebrate) animals: FISH, AMPHIBIANS, REPTILES, BIRDS, and MAMMALS. Step 4 The five students with the plates go to different places in the classroom. The teacher holds the plate INVERTEBRATES. On the back of each plate, the student who is responsible for the corresponding group of animals has a list of the correct characteristics of the animals in his/her group. (Handout 1) The cards from Handout 2 are cut separately on cardboard paper and spread face-down on a large space. The cards with the same colour are tied together and the students who choose the packs comprising several cards (pack1 with 5 cards reading “I have a spine”; pack 2 – 3 cards “I am cold-blooded”; pack 3 – 2 cards “I am warm-blooded”; pack 4 – 2 cards “I lay soft eggs to reproduce”; pack 5 - 2 cards “I lay hard-shelled eggs to reproduce”) will have more than one card but all their cards read the same information. Each student chooses randomly a card (or a pack of cards), reads the information and goes to the corresponding animal groups which bears the characteristic written on the card. When a student goes to the group where he/she believes his/her characteristic belongs to, the group leader (one of the five students with the plates or the teacher, who is responsible for the Invertebrates) checks the correctness of the choice, and redirects the student to another group, if being wrong. The students who have made the correct choice, stay by the group leaders. The students with the packs of cards need to go to all the groups that have the characteristic written on the cards - they give one card to the group leader and go to the next group; they stay by the group leader where they deliver the last card. Step 5 The groups come to the front one by one and present the corresponding group of animals. Example (group FISH): the group leader presents the group “We are fish.”, and the students from the group present the characteristics one after the other reading them from the cards – “I am a fish. I have a spine.”, “I am a fish. I am cold-blooded.”, “I am a fish. I live underwater.”, “I am a fish. I can breathe underwater with my gills.”, “I am a fish. I have scales and fins.”, “I am a fish. I lay soft eggs to reproduce.”. Step 6 Groups are provided with flipchart paper or any large-sized paper and are instructed to create a poster about the animals belonging to their groups. They can glue the plate with the name of the group and the paper cards with the characteristics of the animals. To make their poster more attractive, they can draw some of the animals belonging to the group, their habitat or whatever they consider relevant. The posters are displayed on the walls of the classroom. | |
| Reflection | The teacher draws a straight line on the floor (or brings a piece of rope several meters long (e.g. 15 m, depending on the available space in the classroom) and places two plates at the ends – one with a smiling face, and one with an unhappy face. Students stand all together away from the line, and when the teacher names an activity from in the lesson, they find their place along the line to indicate if they liked the activity or not. List of activities:
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| Notes | Step 6 could be done as a follow-up activity in an Art lesson, or it can be split in two phases – the first one being done in class, and the second one – in a couple of days. As a preparation for the second phase students could be asked to bring pictures of animals belong to their group, so that they can glue them on the posters. | |
| Digital Resource | Video (step 1) | |