Animals and Their Characteristics (Free Worksheet)

Animals and their Characteristics – The 5 Animal Groups

These free pages are down below!

Last week my daughter worked on vertebrates and invertebrates. From there she started working on the 5 animal groups.  I also wanted to go over the characteristics of the various vertebrate animal groups with her.

As she sorted the animal groups we talked about some of the characteristics of each group… fish and amphibians lay their eggs in water, reptiles and  birds lay their eggs on land and so forth.

We did this several times over the course of a number of days. Once she knew all the characteristics fairly well, I brought out a matching page. She had to match one of the characteristics (such as warm blooded) with all the animals that had that trait.

I also pulled out some sheets from a science book I bought for ED at the beginning of the school year.  She did several pages from that book that week as well. We love the fact that our pets always come to check out what we’re doing and hang out with us! 🙂

Update: When ED (my youngest) was about this same age, she wanted to study all things about animals!  I made an entire packet (100+ pages) about animals,

• body coverings (feathers, fur, scales or skin activities),
• animal characteristics,
• 5 animal groups,
• insects vs. spiders,
• herbivores/carnivores/omnivores,
• wild vs. domestic animals,
• animal tracks,
• nocturnal vs. diurnal,
• animal homes & shelters,
• and more!

Here’s a couple quick pictures of that unit. You can find out more here: Animal Unit – Animal Characteristics, Animal Groups, vertebrates and invertebrates, Spiders vs Insects, Animal Homes and more! Or you can purchase it with the link below.

Back to the original post… if you are interested, you can download the two pages below FREE by clicking on the link.

Animal Characteristics Free Worksheets:

 Animals and their Characteristics – the 5 Animal Groups Free Worksheets

I also included an answer sheet.

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Big Animal Bundle

Do your kids love animals as much as mine do?  Be sure to check out our Big Animal Bundle options (8 or 11 PDFs!). Kids will learn all about animals…

• Vertebrates vs. invertebrates
• Spiders vs. insects
• Animal tracks
• World animals – learn about the animals of the 7 continents – (Plus a new section specifically about the animals of the African Savannah)
• The animal life cycles – This packet helps kids become familiar with the different stages in the life cycles of the chicken, sea turtle, frog, mosquito, butterfly, dragonfly, bee, mouse, and ladybug.
• The Rainforest – Learn about all about the rainforest, animals and insects of the rainforest and more!
• Winter – learn why we have seasons, the differences between the Arctic and Antarctica, learn all about Polar Animals, learn why animals hibernate and more!
• Cicadas Mini-Unit
• Chameleons Mini-Unit
• Wolves Mini-Unit
• Dinosaurs
• Australia and Australian Animals
• The Mitten Activities Packet

Quick Previews of the PDFs in our Big Animal BUNDLE:

• The Animal Unit is 100+ pages. It covers basic animal classification, animal characteristics, body coverings: feathers, fur, scales or skin, vertebrate groups, invertebrate groups, domesticated vs. wild animals, animals and their tracks, nocturnal vs diurnal animals, animal homes and shelters and more!

• The World Animal Packet is 75+ pages. It covers animals of the 7 continents.  There is a new section all about African animals of the savanna.

• The Rainforest Packet is 75+ pages. Learn all about Tropical and Temperate Rainforests, where they are located, Amazon Rainforest Facts, rainfall in the Amazon, Animals & Insects of the Amazon, Layers of the Rainforest Activities and more.

The Life Cycles Packet is 50+ pages. It helps kids become familiar with the different stages in the life cycles of the chicken, sea turtle, frog, mosquito, butterfly, dragonfly, bee, mouse, and ladybug.

The Winter Packet and Hibernation Unit is 100+ Pages.  The first part covers Growing Crystals, Months/ Seasons, Earth’s Axis and the Seasons, Arctic vs. Antarctica, Polar Animals, Penguins, Seals, Whales, about a dozen PreK Activity Pages. The Hibernation Unit covers: why animals hibernate, terms such as torpor, brumation, estivation, diapause, endotherms vs. ectotherms.  Plus, it covers where animals spend the winter and the dangers of hibernation. It includes various activities such as notebook pages, interactive notebook/lapbook pieces, matching and tracing pages.

Cicadas Packet: This 20-page unit includes cicada worksheets, notebook pages and a lapbook so kids can learn more about this fascinating insect!

Chameleons Packet This 15-page mini-unit helps kids learn all about chameleons from where they live and what they eat to how big they are and why the change colors.

Wolves Packet This 35+page mini-unit helps learn all about wolves. It includes notebook pages with tracing, a lapbook and activity pages.

Big Animal BUNDLE

   $19.99 Big Animal BUNDLE – This Bundle includes 8 PDF packets.  1) Animal Unit, 2) World Animals Packet, 3) Rainforest Packet, 4) Life Cycles Packet, 5) Winter Packet & Hibernation Unit Plus three mini-units on 6) wolves, 7) cicadas and 8) chameleons.  See the Big Animal BUNDLE page for more details.

Don’t forget to check your PayPal email address for the download link!

Big Animal BUNDLE 2

Big Animal BUNDLE 2 includes all of the units above, plus the Mitten Activities Packet, Dinosaur Packet and the new Australia Packet!

$29.99 Big Animal BUNDLE 2 This second animal bundle option includes1) Animal Unit, 2) World Animals Packet, 3) Rainforest Packet, 4) Life Cycles Packet, 5) Winter Packet plus the 6) Cicada Packet 7) Chameleons Packet 8) Wolves Packet 9) Mitten Activity Packet 10) Dinosaur Unit and the 11) Australia Unit.

These units are all sold separately as well. See the Big Animal BUNDLE page for more details about each of these units.

Don’t forget to check your PayPal email address for the download link.  You can always email me if you need help! ~Liesl

Visit the Big Animal BUNDLE page for more details about each of these units or scroll down below.

  $5.99  Animal Unit (100+ pages) – This unit covers animal characteristics, Feather, fur or scales?,  animal classification (the animal kingdoms, vertebrates and invertebrate groups), insects vs. spiders, animal tracks, animals homes and shelters, nocturnal vs. diurnal animals and more! Quick Preview or More details here or view image 1, image 2, image 3, image 4, image 5, image 6, image 7, image 8, image 9, image 10, image 11 MORE PICS BELOW or at the Big Animal BUNDLE page!

More pictures down below!

  $4.99  World Animals Unit (100+ pages) Animals of the 7 Continents: Montessori 3-part cards and Activity Pages, best for ages 3-7 or so. Also in the World Animals Unit is the mini-unit on Animals of the African Savanna  Quick Preview or view image 1, view image 2, view image 3 (African Animals)

$4.99 Amazon Rainforest Packet (50 pages) Quick Preview or visit the post or view image 1, image 2, image 3, image 4, image 5, image 6, image 7, image 8

$4.99  Life Cycles Packet (50 pages) Explore the life cycles of the chicken, sea turtle, frog, mosquito, butterfly, dragonfly, bee, ladybug, mouse Quick Preview or visit the post or view image 1, image 2, image 3, image 4, image 5

$4.99  Winter Unit – Earth’s Axis/Seasons; The Arctic vs. Antarctica; Polar Animals includes a Hibernation Unit (100+ pages)   Winter Packet and Hibernation Unit Quick Preview or view the post or view image 1, image 2 Arctic vs Antartica, image 3 polar animals, image 4 seals sea lions penguins, image 5 Hibernation Unit

$2.50 Cicadas Packet This 20-page unit includes cicada worksheets, notebook pages and a lapbook so kids can learn more about this fascinating insect! See more at this post.

2.50 Chameleons Packet This 15-page mini-unit helps kids learn all about chameleons from where they live and what they eat to how big they are and why the change colors.

$0.00 FREE Living Nonliving Cards and Worksheets (More info here)

$4.99 Dinosaur Unit (100+ pages – Multi-Age Packet: 75 pages for ages 3-6; 80 pages for ages 7-9) View Post or View image 1, image 2, image 3, image 4 lapbook, image 4 This unit is included in the Big Animal BUNDLE 2 only.

This unit is included in the Big Animal BUNDLE 2 only.

 

$3.50 Mitten Activities Packet (40 pages) View Post or View image 1, image 2, image 3, image 4 This unit is not included in the Big Animal BUNDLE.

$6.99 Australia Unit (75-pages) This unit covers the geography and animals of Australia.  Students will learn the location and basic facts about the states and territories of Australia. Then they will go on to learn more about Australia’s animals. They will learn about many of Australia’s marsupials and monotremes as well as other well-known birds and reptiles.  See more about this new unit at this post: Australia Packet Click on the link to see more pictures: Image 1, image 2, image 3, image 4, image 5, image 6, image 7, image 8, image 9, image 10, image 11 This unit is included in Big Animal BUNDLE 2.

$5.99 Five Senses Unit You can find out more about our 100+ page Five Senses Packet. Details are here: View Post, image 1, image 2, image 3, image 4, image 5

$5.99 Simple Machines Unit Quick Preview or visit post or view image This is a fun hands-on unit we did when my kids were in PreK and early elementary.

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Here’s more about our  Animal Unit on vertebrates and invertebrates:

Here’s more about our 100+ page packet:

What am I?

mammal bird reptile amphibian or fish?

Again, you can find our more about our 100+ page packet below!

This unit goes into both vertebrates and invertebrates. We went into more depth about the characteristics of the 5 animal groups (plus covered the classification of invertebrates, animal tracks, domesticated vs. wild animals and other things.

We talked about the types of animals and their characteristics. We had some amazing discussions about this because of all the exceptions (the sheet on the right):

What am I? – 5 Animal Group Worksheets

There is a cut-and-paste activity about the 5 animal groups (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish):

Study of Invertebrates: We also spent time in this unit on invertebrates and invertebrate classification. As you can see we talked about some of the different invertebrate groups (insects, crustaceans, centipedes, arachnids, mollusks, etc.)  There’s  a invertebrate classification chart, a cut-and-paste-activity, and activities about spiders vs. insects.

Animal Track Activities:

I added in some fun pages about… yes, animal tongues!! These pages talk about why tongues are important (what their function is) and has “Whose tongues are these?” page where kids have to identify the tongues they see in the picture provided. For younger kids, there are tracing pages about the function of tongues. 🙂Animal Homes and Shelters & Herbivore/Carnivore/Omnivore activities (also in the Animal Packet):

Animal Packet: Vertebrate-Invertebrate Packet, 100+ Page Packet: My daughter is currently in Grade 2 and we are doing a new unit on the types of animals and on the Biosphere (more about that below).  I made a new set of materials for her.  It covers the 5 types of vertebrates and goes over the main characteristic of each vertebrate group: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish. It also covers many of the invertebrate groups starting with the differences between insects and spiders. Then going into more detail about some of the other invertebrate groups: crustaceans, mollusks, echinoderms, porifera, and others. It has a section on herbivores/carnivores/omnivores. Plus, it has a huge section on animal tracks (fun to do in the winter!) and has a bit about food webs, though we’ll really go into depth about that in our unit on the biosphere which we’ll do immediately following this unit.

Here are more pictures of our World Animal Packet:

There are animal cards and activities for each of the continents.

There is a fun board game. Players have to be the first to collect an animal from every continent.

There are also materials included for creating your own world animals pin map activity:This packet includes Montessori 3-part cards and suggestions on how to use them:

And a new section specifically on animals of the African Savanna.

Newly added to the World Animals Packet:

The Big Animal Bundle includes the Life Cycles Packet:

Life Cycles Packet: All living things go through changes as they grow and develop! This new 50+ page Life Cycles Packet helps kids become familiar with the different stages in the life cycles of the chicken, sea turtle, frog, mosquito, butterfly, dragonfly, bee, mouse, and ladybug. This unit includes worksheets, Montessori 3-part cards, spinners, ordering activity pages, writing pages, and more. Visit this post for more details: Life Cycles Unit

It also includes the Rainforest Packet:

It also includes the Winter Packet (which focuses on Polar Animals and more)

The hibernation materials are included in the Winter Packet. 🙂

See you again soon here or over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page! Don’t forget to Subscribe to our Homeschool Den Newsletter. You might also want to check out some of our resources pages above (such as our Science, Language Arts, or History Units Resource Pages) which have links to dozens of posts.  You might want to join our free Homeschool Den Chat Facebook group.  Don’t forget to check out Our Store as well. Happy Homeschooling, everyone!!  ~Liesl

You might also be interested in our Biology Packet:

Biosphere Packet — Biomes, Feeding Relationships, Biological Interactions and More!:  After our family did the Animal unit, we went on to learn about the different biomes, the food chain and food webs, the energy pyramid, animal feeding relationships and more.

If your kids are a bit older (upper elementary, middle school) your kids might enjoy the Scientific Classification and Taxonomy Unit.  We did this Animal Unit several years ago and just this year we did an entire unit on scientific classification & taxonomy. We build dichotomous keys and went into quite a bit of depth about the animal phyla:

Scientific Classification and Taxonomy Packet

Dinosaur Packet for Ages 3-7

 100+ Page Dinosaur Packet! 

Related Posts

• Animal Portfolio Project (for ages 8-10 or so)
• Free Montessori World Pin Map
• You might also be interested in last weeks post where I shared the free Montessori World Pin Map.

• Rainforest Unit (Amazon Rainforest)

• Rainforest Plants (from around the world)

• World Biomes Pin Map

• Where I Live Activity Packet:My galaxy, solar system, planet, continent, country, state, town, and home!

• The Seven Continents and World Landmarks