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There are so many living things that scientists sort them into groups. This is called classifying.

To sort them, scientists look closely at what living things have: legs or no legs, wings, fur, feathers, a shell…

Animals, plants and fungi are three big groups. Mushrooms are fungi. Fungi are not plants: they cannot make their food from sunlight like plants do.

Some animals have a backbone, like you, a dog or a fish. Most animals have no backbone at all: insects, worms, crabs, octopuses and jellyfish.

Experiment: Sort the animals

1. Look closely at all the animals. Talk about what you see: legs, wings, fur, feathers, shells.
2. Choose one question with a yes or no answer, for example: 'Does it have legs?'
3. Put the 'yes' animals in one hoop and the 'no' animals in the other.
4. Write your question on a sticky note next to the hoops.
5. Mix them up and sort again with a new question, for example 'Does it have wings?'
6. Can another group guess your question just by looking at your hoops?

My question	Yes animals	No animals
Question 1
Question 2

Questions

1. Draw an animal with a backbone and an animal without a backbone.

   🍎

2. Is a mushroom a plant or a fungus?

   plant / fungus

3. Write one yes-or-no question you can use to sort animals.

Sources for every fact on this sheet: echoesof.science/school/classification/sources/

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