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Kindergarten · Science · Unit 2 of 11

Animal Features

Fur, feathers, fins and shells

What your child practices

Noticing body parts like fur, feathers, fins and shells, and how features help animals and plants live where they do.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: K.13(B) · animal structures for seeing, hearing, moving and grasping

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Look at the outside of an animal's body.
  2. Birds have feathers. Fish have fins. Cats and bears have fur.
  3. Some animals, like turtles, have a shell.

Example: Which animal has fins: a fish or a dog? Fins help an animal swim. A fish swims with fins. Answer: a fish

Animal Features in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 2 of 11 in Kindergarten Science, after What Living Things Need and before Materials.

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

    Fur or feathers? Tap an animal, then its basket.

    Sort into: 🐾 fur · 🪶 feathers

    • 🐔chicken
    • 🐈cat
    • 🐿️squirrel
    • 🦆duck
    • 🐧penguin
    • 🦊fox

  2. Question 2

    Which animal has a shell?

    • 🐸frog
    • 🐇rabbit
    • 🐢turtle

  3. Question 3

    A beaver's big front teeth help it…

    🦫
    • ☁️fly
    • 🪵chew wood
    • 🌙see at night

  4. Question 4

    Which animal has a very long neck?

    • 🦒giraffe
    • 🐖pig
    • 🐇rabbit

  5. Question 5

    Which animal has feathers?

    • 🐕dog
    • 🐦bird
    • 🐟fish

  6. Question 6

    Which tree has needles instead of flat leaves?

    • 🌴palm tree
    • 🌲pine tree
    • 🍁maple tree

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