Science and Technology K–6 · Kindergarten

Sorting animals by their external features

Living World (NSW 2017); Science understanding, Biological sciences (ACARA v9)

PracticalLow risk

The idea

Animals can be grouped by features anyone can see and count: number of legs, body covering, wings, fins or shells.

Safety card

Low riskAn adult supervises

Hazards

A live garden snail: snails and slugs can carry rat lungworm (NSW Health)

Controls

An adult supervises any live snail; hands washed well after handling it; the snail is returned to the garden the same day

Note

Live animals: the 2017 syllabus Animal Welfare section and the NSW Department of Education science safety and compliance page (which points to the Animals in Schools site) apply; return every animal to where it was found. Record the activity on Primary School RiskAssess (riskassess.com.au).

What you need

12 laminated photo cards of Australian animals with the whole body visible (for example kangaroo, magpie, blue-tongue lizard, green tree frog, huntsman spider, garden snail, honey bee, goldfish, echidna, cockatoo, earthworm, eastern water dragon)
5 sorting hoops or A3 sheets, each labelled with a picture and one of the words 0 legs, 2 legs, 4 legs, 6 legs, 8 legs
1 hand lens per pair, for the cards and for a live garden snail if one is brought in (kept in a ventilated container)
Recording sheet with a two-column table: feature, animal names

How to do it

Look at one card at a time. Say what you can see: legs, wings, shell, fur, feathers, scales, skin.
Count the legs on each card and place the card in the matching hoop. Check each other's count.
Sort the same cards a second way: body covering (fur, feathers, scales, shell, smooth skin).
Draw one animal and label three features you can see.
Share one group with the class and explain the feature that put the animals together.

What you should see

The 12 cards sort into 0 legs (garden snail, earthworm, goldfish), 2 legs (magpie, cockatoo), 4 legs (kangaroo, blue-tongue lizard, green tree frog, echidna, eastern water dragon), 6 legs (honey bee) and 8 legs (huntsman spider): 3, 2, 5, 1 and 1 cards, 12 in all. A kangaroo often stands and hops on its two hind legs, so some learners say 2; counting the two front legs on the card settles it at 4, which is worth discussing. The learner knows it worked when every pair reaches the same leg count for the same card and can name the feature used for the second sort.

What changes

This activity lists no variables to change, measure and keep the same.

Common misconceptions

Each of these ideas is wrong, and the activity is a chance to test it.

A spider is an insect (spiders have eight legs and two body parts; insects have six legs and three).
A snake has no features to sort by (it has scales, a tail and a mouth even without legs).
Fish are not animals because they live in water.

Curriculum references

The NSW syllabus outcomes and Australian Curriculum v9 codes this activity supports. They are references, not a verified or complete curriculum alignment.

Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus (2017), NESA. Current syllabus; NESA's timeline is 2026 plan and prepare, 2027 start teaching the 2024 syllabus. Code read from the official syllabus document on 2026-09-22.STe-3LW-ST
Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus (2024), NESA. Implementation from 2027, so this code describes the future syllabus. Code read from the outcomes page on 2026-09-22.STE-SCI-01
Australian Curriculum v9AC9SFU01AC9SFI02AC9SFI03AC9SFI05

Sources

The pages the author read to write this activity.

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