Invertebrates Hunt! 

Year 4 are currently enjoying our most recent Science unit: Classification! We have learnt that put simply classification means to put things into groups by looking at similarities and differences between the way they look and behave.

We know that animals can divided into two main groups:

• Vertebrates: Animals that have a backbone (spine)
• Invertebrates: Animals that don’t have a backbone 

We have learnt about Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish scientist who devised a new way of classifying living things into groups. This method became known as the Linnaean System. Today, the Linnaean System is still used to classify animals and plants today but it has been revised and additional levels have been added as new living things have been discovered. 

We took on the role as scientists and set out on our invertebrate hunt to see if we could classify some of the invertebrates in our school environment. We used a classification key to help us to do this. 

Specifically, we explored our field and woodland area to see what microhabitats we could find. Here are some photographs of some of the invertebrates we found as well as some of the microhabitats we came across…

The children worked really carefully and delicately to ensure we were not damaging or disturbing any invertebrates in their microhabitats. We know that because invertebrates are typically quite small, they must be handled very carefully. We had to make sure we were observing them without causing them any harm.