Discovering Mammals: A Fun Animal Classification Activity for Preschoolers

Is there any subject more universally loved by children than animals? We will begin a series of projects that teach about animal classification, showing children how the animal kingdom is broken down into mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, and amphibians. These projects will let children explore this beloved topic in-depth while also teaching them about science and engaging them in a favorite activity: sorting.

Materials:

• Poster Board
• Markers and crayons
• A source for your child to find pictures of mammals: the internet, printer, and paper or magazines and scissors
• Glue stick
• Books about several different kinds of mammals
  - Whenever possible, source books that show real pictures of animals in their natural habitats and engaged in mammalian behaviors, such as caring for their young.
• Mammal characteristics worksheet
• Optional: A variety of toy animals (plastic, stuffed, etc.) that include some mammals and some non-mammals

Tell your child that you’re going to learn about many different types of animals and how to sort them into different categories. This week, you’ll learn about a group of animals called mammals.

Review the mammal characteristics worksheet with your child and let them color it. Talk about how mammals are a group of animals that:

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

Talk about some familiar and notable examples of mammals:

• Dogs and cats
• Cows and horses
• Whales and dolphins
• Duck-Billed platypuses
• Humans!

Read some books about different types of mammals. Look at each picture and talk about the animals. Can you see its fur or hair? Is it taking care of its babies? What type of environment does it live in—warm, cold, in the forest, in the water?

Divide your poster board into 5 sections, one for each class of animal we will look at: mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, and amphibians. Since this is an odd number, you could make the mammal section larger as there are so many wonderful examples of mammals. If your child is particularly infatuated with another class of animal (reptiles for example) you could save the larger section to be their favorite one. Another option is to divide the poster board into 6 equal sections and leave one section for miscellaneous animals, like insects, that don’t fall into the other classes.

Label one section “Mammals.” Together with your child, search online for different examples of mammals or cut pictures from magazines. If your child points out an animal that is not a mammal, take the time to look it up and see what class it falls into. Glue the examples to the mammal section of your poster. You don’t have to fill the mammal section up entirely today. You may find other great examples of mammals as you work on different sections of the poster later.

Optionally, you can get out your child’s stuffed animals or plastic animals and have your child sort them into mammals and non-mammals.

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.
• For these projects, we will be learning about classes of animals that are vertebrates (have backbones). There are many other classes of animals, in addition to the ones we will cover, that are invertebrates (lack a backbone) like insects.
• During the course of this project, if your child asks about insects or any animal from a class we are not covering, you could: 1) expand your research and project to include the classes that they ask about, or 2) simply explain that the animal falls into a different category that you haven’t learned about yet and, perhaps, learn a few facts about that specific animal.