Project Based Learning

Classifying Animals & Habitats

Grade: Kindergarten
Subjects: Science, Writing, Global Citizenship, Art
Delivery/ Duration:
This is a unit study that will be delivered as a series of lessons. Each lesson is
varies from 30-45 minutes.

Materials:
• 1 Ipad per group of 4-5 students
• Butcher paper
• Magazines/Pictures of animals
• Art Supplies

Standards:

NGSS
K-LS1-1 Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals
(including humans) need to survive.

California Common Core Standards:

ELA
RI.K.1 With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details
in a text.

W.K.2 Use a combination of drawing, and writing to compose information/

explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and
supply some information about the topic.
SL.K.3 Ask and answer questions in order to seek help, get information, or
clarify something that is not understood

SL.K.5 Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions as desired to

provide additional detail

Essential Questions:
What do animals need in order to survive?
What type of habitat do they need to live in?
How can we help animals that are endangered?

Objective: Teach students the important of what animals need in order to

survive, learn about animal habitats, and how they can help animals that are
endangered.

Vocabulary: habitats, survive, environments, classifaction

Hook

• Classroom is setup with posters of different animals: pandas, dolphin,

snake, dogs, birds, etc.
• Begin by asking students: Do all these animals live in the same habitat?
What is a habitat? (allow students to make a prediction)
• Watch a video from brain pop jr. on habitats
• When then discuss what we watched in the video: What animals did we
see? Where does it live? What does it need to live? What happens to
that animal if it no longer lives there?
• Go over vocabulary terms: Habitats, environment, survive

Body (this section is comprised with series of sequential lessons)

• All students will be get to choose an animal they want to research on.
 • Students in class will get sometime to research and look at National
Geographic book, YouTube, BrainPop Jr. Live-webcams of
animals…etc.
• Students will draw the animal and where it lives
- Students will have 3 days to do at home research with parent
involvement
- End project entitles for students to bring in a poster board including:
picture of animal, where it lives, what it eats, why it lives in that type of
environment, what would happen if the animals was moved to a different
habitat
• Present to classmates posters on the different animals
• Once students have all presented, students will then be grouped
according to animals habitats
• Students will then begin to learn about animal classification

Classification lesson:
o Begin by discussing what types of classification:
- Insects, birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals
• Over a series of 2-3 days students will learn about each classification
• They will then discuss as a group what classification they believe their

animal is on.
rd
• On 3 or 4th day students will draw each of their animals (from
project) onto a big piece of white paper. They will then add details to
show the animals classification.
th th
• 5 or 6 day students will write about the animals in their group and

what makes them part of that classification. They will also write about
ways of helping that animal stay in it’s habitat.

Presentation:
• Students will then begin to prepare for a mini lesson on a PowerPoint
(students will be assisted by their 3rd grade reading buddies)
• Once a mini presentation has been created students will practice
presentation skills as a group.
 • After sufficient preparation, students will present to another
kindergarten class.

Assessments:
• Animal Research
- Did students draw a picture of their animal, did they write about the
animal; where it lives, eats, why it lives there? Out of 5 points- 1 point for
each item
• Classification Project
-Where students able to correctly classify their animal correctly? With
the help of their 3rd grade buddies where they able to create a
presentation? Include images of each students animal? Did they write about
what makes those animals part of that specific classification? Did they write
about a way to help that animal? Out of 5 points- 1 point for each item