CU 6.09Animal Coverings

1. 1

   Invite the child to bring the tray. Feel the wool together: 'This is like fur. Many animals have fur or hair.'

2. 2

   Stroke the feather: 'Only birds have feathers.'

3. 3

   Tap the shell: 'Some animals, like snails and turtles, have a hard shell.'

4. 4

   Show the photographs of scales: 'Fish and snakes have scales.' Then show the frog: 'A frog has smooth, moist skin.'

5. 5

   Lay out the header cards and give a three-period lesson on the five coverings.

6. 6

   Sort a few animal cards together, saying the covering aloud.

7. 7

   Invite the child to sort the rest and check with the control chart.

What catches the child’s eye

• The soft wool next to the hard, cool shell
• A frog's shiny, wet-looking skin in the photograph

Extensions, easiest to hardest

1. Touch our own skin and hair: people are mammals and have hair
2. Sort harder animals: a turtle (shell and scaly skin), a whale (only a few hairs), a penguin (feathers)
3. Play a feely bag game with the samples, naming each by touch
4. Look for coverings on a nature walk: an empty snail shell, a dog's fur, a bird's feathers seen from a distance