Chapter 2: Grouping living things

By the end of this chapter you will be able to

• Explain that living things can be grouped in many different ways, using shared features
• Name the five groups of animals with a backbone, and give one feature of each
• Name the main groups of animals without a backbone, and say how to tell an insect from a spider
• Sort plants into flowering and non-flowering plants
• Read a table and a Venn diagram to count the living things in each group
• Explain why a group is chosen by its shared features, not by where an animal lives

You should already know

• Living, dead and never alive, and the basic needs of animals (Year 2 Science)
• The parts of a flowering plant, and what a skeleton does (Year 3 Science, Chapters 2 and 6)

Where this leads

• Classification keys, which use yes or no questions to name living things (Year 4 Science, Chapter 3)
• Food chains, and the animals and plants in habitats (Year 4 Science, Chapter 4)