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7th grade · Science · Unit 13 of 18

Sorting Living Things

Animals, plants, fungi and keys

What your child practices

Telling mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish apart, vertebrates from invertebrates, the kingdoms, and the levels of classification.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 7.14(A); 7.14(B) · the taxonomic system and the kingdoms of living things

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Vertebrates have backbones: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. Invertebrates don’t.
  2. Insects have 6 legs and 3 body parts; arachnids have 8 legs and 2 body parts.
  3. Levels of classification go from kingdom down to species.

Example: A scorpion has 8 legs and 2 body parts. Which group is it in? 8 legs and 2 body parts are arachnid features. Answer: arachnids

Sorting Living Things in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 13 of 18 in 7th grade Science, after Cells, Tissues & Organs and before Speed, Velocity & Motion Graphs.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    A spider has eight legs and two body parts. Which group is it in?

    • Insects
    • Arachnids
    • Mammals

  2. Question 2

    Ferns and mosses reproduce using…

    • seeds in cones
    • flowers and fruit
    • spores

  3. Question 3

    Which is an invertebrate?

    • A snail
    • A frog
    • A robin

  4. Question 4

    Which is a trait of the fungi kingdom?

    • They make food using sunlight
    • They absorb nutrients from dead or living matter
    • They have backbones

  5. Question 5

    Which group of vertebrates has gills when young and lives in water?

    • Mammals
    • Birds
    • Fish

  6. Question 6

    How many legs and body parts does an insect have?

    • Eight legs and two body parts
    • Four legs and one body part
    • Six legs and three body parts

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