Life Science, Week 16

Vertebrates - Animals with Backbones

Our first stop on the animal kingdom train is the phylum Chordata, which includes Vertebrates. Our focus for the next several weeks will be on the five classes of Vertebrates...birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish.


Monday

• Read What is a Vertebrate? by Bobbie Kalman.
• Completed Evan-Moor ScienceWorks for Kids: Animals with Backbones, Grades 1-3 "Animals with Backbones are Called Vertebrates" activities (pages 6-7) from TeacherFileBox.com.

I wasn't able to quickly come up with inexpensive full chicken and fish skeletons for the "Some Animals Have a Backbone" portion of the lesson, so I used pictures from DK Eyewitness Books: Skeleton by Steve Parker. It's a great alternative. The book features numerous photos of complete animal skeletons that perfectly match Evan-Moor's illustrations. I'm pretty sure the artist used the book as a resource.

Due to frigid temperatures and snowy weather, I had to improvise for the "Animal Search" portion of the lesson as well. Instead of taking a nature walk, I had Tessa flip through an issue of Your Big Backyard/Ranger Rick. I made sure the issue featured a variety of vertebrates, insects and other arthropods.