Explorify at home: Classification

Explorify from home is a special series of science activities for parents and carers of primary school children who are now learning at home. We define activities by age and curriculum topics in Explorify, but these collections are also suitable to do all together as a family of mixed aged children. Or if your little scientist just wants to explore further, pick something from the other age sections for inspiration! Teachers can find out about our full (free!) classroom resource at the bottom of this page. 

Parents, read on! 

This collection is all about classification. Grouping living things helps us understand more about them. 

For children aged 5-7 

First, watch this video: Minibeasts fascinate young children – there are so many different minibeasts that you can find. Play the video above which shows worms moving around in a compost heap. (You can click the arrows on the right end of the play bar right to make it full screen.) Talk about what is happening, how many different worms can be seen, what they are doing. We couldn’t do without worms: they help maintain soil health and are essential inhabitants of our compost heap.

Hands-on activity: You could explore any worms in your garden or create a wormery using this advice from the Royal Horticultural Society. If you don’t have a garden, look for different minibeasts when out for a walk and tally what you find: they could be any insects, spiders (spiders are not insects!) or worms. Worms often leave casts of soil on the surface of grass to show they have been active.

Watch more on Classification on: BBC Bitesize Daily

Age 7-9 

First, take a close-up look: Some creatures live alone, others live in communities and work together to survive. Open up this Zoom In Zoom Out activity, 'Swirly structure'.  Look at the first picture for clues and wonder what it might be; any idea is fine if children can say why, as there isn’t always just one right answer in science. Use the magnifying glass icon to zoom out and reveal more clues; talk about what you see.

Hands-on activity: Did you realise you were looking at a wasp nest? Wasps chew up wood to make a pulp that they form into this structure. What other homes for insects do your children know about? What can you spot around your home or outside? Can your children make their own spiders’ web using some sort of thread?

Watch more on Classification on: BBC Bitesize Daily

Age 9-11 

First, watch this video: Many insects are pollinators – we rely on them to pollinate plants for our food. The insects that pollinate the plants are attracted because the plant supplies them with food – the plant lures insects to it with sweet nectar just so that the insect will carry pollen from one plant to another. This video, called 'Alien shapes', shows a plant known as the 'corpse flower' that flowers rarely but has some incredible methods to lure insects to it. It smells like rotting flesh which attracts beetles and flies and looks like something out of this world. Take a look!

Look around: Next time you’re out walking, look out for different insects pollinating flowers: butterflies, moths, beetles, bees, hoverflies, ladybirds and try to watch what they do.

Watch more on Classification on: BBC Bitesize Daily

Please note that adults should supervise practical activities, make sure that children use appropriate materials and tools, and wash hands after handling any food items. 

Take it further:

- Visit STEM Learning, to explore their support for parents and carers with home learning.

- Watch the BBC Bitesize Daily programmes on classification, that will be available from 6th May 2020. Links to watch them will be added under your child's age above then. Previous programmes including versions for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland can be found on the iPlayer.

- Browse our other collections – there's are more added each week!

That's all for this week!

We hope your little scientists have enjoyed exploring classifications this week. We'd love to know how you got on. You can follow us on Twitter or Facebook or email us if you have any feedback on this collection.

Are you a primary school teacher who has yet to sign up to Explorify?

If you are a teacher who hasn't discovered Explorify before, you can sign up and explore the whole website with over 400 free activities. (It's free, as it's funded by charitable foundation Wellcome Trust. Our mission is to help you enhance your science teaching and get your pupils thinking like scientists!) We provide background science, to help you field questions from your pupils and ideas to take our curriculum-linked activities further. Something to get your teeth into for when you're back in the classroom!

Image credits: 

‘Wrigglers': CAFNR via Flickr licenced under CC BY-NC 2.0; Video: © Chris Kolaczan via Shutterstock

‘Swirly Structure’: Wellcome; Joren de Groof via Flickr licenced under CC BY 2.0;

‘Alien shapes’: Video credit: © Eden Project All Rights Reserved;