Five-Minute Activities for Young Learners

Box 7
Animal classification
Insect Mammal
Fish
Bird
Reptile
Amphibian
Sentence
stems
Small 
Gives birth Cold-blooded  Has 
Cold-
Lives in 
It has . . .
animal Gives milk  Vertebrate, 
feathers 
blooded
water and on  It is . . .
Six 
to its 
i.e. has a 
and wings Lays eggs 
land
It lays . . .
legs
babies
skeleton or a  Most birds  Vertebrate,  (Only use the  It can . . .
Warm-
back bone
can fly
i.e. has a 
classification  It lives . . .
blooded
Lays eggs
skeleton or  amphibian if 
It gives . . .
Lives in 
a back 
frog is one of 
water
bone
the 
Scales
Scales
suggestions.)
Tail
Note: If students use their first language to describe a skeleton, this gives you
the opportunity to introduce new vocabulary such as vertebrate, skeleton or
back bone. Children at this level may have been exposed to these concepts in
their mainstream classes, but do not have the English language to express
their ideas. This is an ideal time to include vocabulary that the children really
want to use.
Five-Minute Activities for Young Learners
16

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Follow-up
• You could record this classification of animals on a wallchart.
• Children could try to come up with a definition for each category of
animal, based on their knowledge of the animals in that category. Their
definitions could be added to the wallchart of classified animals.
Suggestions are in Box 7.
• For other information reports, see Activities 1.8, 1.13, 2.8, 2.18, 4.14.