Invertebrate-Vertebrate Unit Study – Montessori Activities

Homeschooling is so great because you can be flexible and go with the flow when the need arises! We were all prepared to start school with a unit on rocks when my wonderful homeschooling friend offered to give us some flatworms called Planarian. Her family had studied them and their amazing properties.  We jumped at the chance to do something new and delved into a week-long study of invertebrates.

It has been a while since ED (my preschooler) has done any Montessori science, so we started with that.  We brought out our living and non-living cards. I handed each of the kids a stack and they divided the cards into two piles. We have some free living -nonliving cards at this post.

IMG_0785Living-NonLiving-MontessoriCardsLiving-NonLiving-MontessoriSortCardsNext, we talked about how scientists classify things, grouping them so they have things in common.  For example, living things have been divided into five kingdoms.  We talked briefly about the different characteristics of the animal, plant, fungi, protists and prokaryotes kingdoms. Then I handed a stack of cards to the kids, and had them decide where they belonged.  I worked with ED on this portion.

IMG_0791Living-KingdomsWe have the 5 Animal Kingdom cards free here: Vertebrate-Invertebrate Montessori Sort Cards

Vertebrate-Invertebrate-Sort --5 Vertebrate Groups SortOnce we had them divided into different categories we put away everything but the animal cards.  We talked about how some animals have backbones and some don’t.  We looked at the vertebrate cards by Cathie at The Helpful Garden that show the backbone of the various vertebrate groups. (She has tons of great stuff she’s posted for free. Be sure to check out her website!) Then we divided our animal kingdom cards into vertebrate and invertebrate cards.

IMG_0795vertebrates-invertebratesThe kids then spent time working on the packet for their science notebooks, drawing pictures of several vertebrate and invertebrate animals. I loved how carefully DD examined the photo of the tiger as she drew its stripes!

Vertebrates-InvertebratesDrawing

We have vertebrate and invertebrate worksheets at this post: Animal Unit – Vertebrate and Invertebrate Worksheets and Activities

 Invertebrate-Groups-ActivitiesAfter that we moved into some hands-on science exploration. More about that tomorrow!

Be sure to see the related posts:

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Related Montessori-Style Posts:

Montessori-Free-World-Pin-Map

Rainforest-Plant-Activity-Cards

 

Biomes-Worksheets

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Other related posts you might be interested in:

Invertebrate-Groups-Activities

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SimpleMachinesPacket See you again soon here or over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page. Don’t forget to Subscribe to our Homeschool Den Newsletter! ~Liesl

4 Responses

  1. January 3, 2014

    […] living and non-living, vertebrates-invertebrates, the 5 classes of animals, animals of the world, the parts of the animal, animals and their babies, animals and their group […]

  2. January 3, 2014

    […] living and non-living, vertebrates-invertebrates, the 5 classes of animals, animals of the world, the parts of the animal, animals and their babies, animals and their group […]

  3. May 12, 2014

    […] Homemade Montessori has free vertebrate and invertebrate cards. […]

  4. May 12, 2014

    […] Homemade Montessori has free vertebrate and invertebrate cards. […]

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