During our Ocean studies, we learned about how to classify animals as fish via several activities. This "shark anatomy" project took about two weeks to complete! The first day we learned that fish are animals with scales, so we put on bubble wrap mittens and painted "scales" all over this paper.
Once dry, Ms. Harmony cut out the paper in the shape of a shark. Over the next few classes, we gradually added fins, gills, and bones by studying our shark toys and from pictures in books. A fish is an animal with bones, gills, fins, and scales. (They also lay eggs!) So this means that sharks, sting rays, and even sea horses go in the fish group too! But "jelly fish" and "star fish" don't because they don't have any bones. Isn't that silly?
Friend "Hammer" noticed that some of our stuffed animals in the House Area had gills too, just like we had put on our shark model! He was pretty excited about that and found other animals that had gills too. It was awesome to see the kids apply knowledge from Greeting Time, Small Group, and Circle Time to their own observations during Work Time.
One additional way we talked about classification was to sort these toys into ocean MAMMAL groups and ocean FISH groups. We examined the toys for clues like blowholes. We knew that an animal that comes up to the top of the water for air has lungs, not gills. They are like us. We also had learned earlier in the year that mammals are animals with fur or hair. This meant we could classify animals like seals, whales, and dolphins in the mammal group because of either the presence of hair or blowholes. (Once sorted, Ms. Harmony also reminded them that all of the animals in the mammal group had live babies, and all* of the animals in the fish group lay eggs. *Actually there are some sharks that have live births, but there is no need to get that technical with kids ages 2-5!
The gills on the ray and shark were a dead giveaway that they went in the fish group! :) Ms. Harmony tried to be tricky by saying that since the shark had teeth, maybe we should put it with the seals and dolphins... but the kids caught on and reminded me that some fish have teeth, and others don't. That's not important when deciding if the animal is a fish or not! These kids are so bright! You can't get anything past them!
