Animal Science for Preschoolers: Classifying Birds Together

This week, let’s add birds to our animal classification display. This is a wonderful category to compare and contrast with reptiles since they both lay eggs.

Materials:

• Your animal characteristics poster that you began in Lesson 16
• Markers and crayons
• A source for your child to find pictures of birds: the internet, printer, and paper or magazines and scissors
• Glue stick
• Books about several different kinds of birds
  - Whenever possible, source books that show real pictures of animals in their natural habitats and engaged in avian behaviors, such as flying, sitting on eggs, or raising chicks.
• Bird characteristics worksheet
• Optional: A variety of toy animals (plastic, stuffed, etc.) that include some birds and some mammals and reptiles.

Tell your child that you’re going to continue learning about different types of animals and how to sort them into different categories. This week, you’ll learn about birds.

Before you begin talking about birds, review the characteristics of mammals and reptiles with your child.

Mammals are a group of animals that:

• Are warm-blooded*
• Have at least some hair or fur
• Feed their babies milk

Review the examples of mammals that you pasted on your animal chart.

Reptiles are a group of animals that:

• Are cold-blooded*
• Have scales
• Breathe using lungs**
• Usually lay eggs (There are some reptiles that don’t.)

Review the examples of reptiles that you pasted on your animal chart.

Now, review the bird characteristics worksheet with your child and let them color it. Talk about how birds:

• Are warm-blooded*
• Have feathers
• Have wings, whether or not they can fly
• Have beaks or bills
• Lay hard-shelled eggs (many reptiles lay soft-shelled eggs)

Talk about some familiar and notable examples of birds:

• Robins
• Flamingos
• Hummingbirds
• Ostriches

Read some books about different types of birds. Look at each picture and talk about the animals. What do its feathers look like? Does it live in one place all year, or does it migrate***? Does it fly? Where does it build its nest—in a tree, on the ground, near the water?

Label one section of your poster board “Birds.” Together with your child, search online for different examples of birds or cut pictures from magazines. If your child points out an animal that is not a bird, take the time to look it up and see what class it falls into. Glue the examples into the bird section of your poster. If you find some great mammal and reptile examples, add those to the appropriate sections as well!

Optionally, you can get out your child’s stuffed animals or plastic animals and have your child sort them into birds, reptiles, mammals, and other types of animals.

Save your poster for later!

Teaching moments:

• *If your child is unfamiliar with warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals, this is the perfect time to introduce those concepts. Warm-blooded animals can make their own heat and may feel warm to the touch, while cold-blooded animals are the same temperature as their surroundings and must move to a sunny or warm location to warm up.
• **The characteristics of reptiles could also equally apply to fish without this distinguishing factor. If you don’t want to get into a detailed anatomical lesson and explanation of lungs, show examples of fish—how they breathe using their gills—and reptiles—how they breathe through their nostrils.
• ***This is a great opportunity to study the differences between animals that adapt (stay in one place all year and adapt to their surroundings), migrate (travel to new locations based on the weather and the seasons), or hibernate (stay in one location, but sleep during the winter when food is scarce).