Explore the Process of Classification

Classification - is that a word that strikes fear into you? Funnily enough, it's something you do naturally anyway - think about other students in your year. First off, you're all in that year because of your age (of course!). Then think about your different classes - can you think of students who have red hair, or blond hair, ones that wear glasses, ones that are taller or shorter than most of the year. You're classifying! You're grouping them. That's what classification is - looking at particular characteristics to group similar things together.

Now, back in Year 4 you did some groundwork on this. In this activity, we're going to extend that a bit, looking a little wider at the various kingdoms and also look at how living things are classified as they are.

Life on our planet is classified into the appropriate kingdom, like plants and animals, and then these are subdivided according to different characteristics - does the plant flower; does the animal have a backbone; does the animal have an exoskeleton? Things like that.

Anyway, let's see how you are with your classification skills!