Practice classifying objects according to physical structure and characteristics.

Materials

A box of assorted buttons

A bag of peanuts (in the shell)

An assortment of leaves

Anything else you might find interesting

Procedure

Assort you items according to any characteristics you choose. (For example, size, color, texture, etc.)

Look closely at the peanuts and group them according to external structure and characteristics.

Is there any other way you could group them?

Do you notice how much easier it is to group non-living items than living items?

Extension

Now that we are experts in classification lets look at other groups of living things. You know that we are all animals but what is the difference between us? What do we have in common and what are our differences? How are animals classified? LET’S GO BACK TO CLASSIFICATION CRAZY!