Zoology & Taxonomy

Ah, science.  Of all subjects it was my weakest in high school: chemistry specifically.  I did alright in biology, mostly because my best friend and I were in the same class and studies together.  If you listened closely during tests and exams you might have heard us humming softly.  We found that the best way to remember the facts was to make up silly songs.  If only I had begun learning science the Montessori way!  Here is a sample lesson, one that can be repeated indefinitely without growing tedious.

 

Above you can see the (almost) completed lesson in zoology/taxonomy.    I use it as a launching board to talk about all different kinds of plants and animals, but mostly animals.  We begin with the most basic of categories: living and non-living.  Ella sets out two pieces of paper, one labeled "Living" and one labeled "Non-Living."

I've made up many cards (just using Microsoft Word, eight cards to an 8 1/2 x 11 page), the vast majority of them animals, for Ella to sort.  I've mixed them all up and divided them into small groups so she can grab a pile and sort through those that day.

Choosing items for non-living was very interesting.  Most things I chose were no-brainers, i.e. they are obviously non-living, but there were a few that were more challenging.  Fire is an excellent one as it has many characteristics of living things (can grow, can move, needs air, needs "food", leaves waste, etc.) and there are a few others that can catch one unawares.  Above you can see that included in this pile are lightening, stalactites, rocks, and a compact disc.  There was no doubt that the rocks and compact disc were non-living, but lightening has some similarities to living things as do stalactites.  It took quite a while for her to decide where to put the stalactites because in an earlier stack she had coral, which appears to be like a rock, but is actually living.  The sneaky ones are the most fun and they help reinforce the difference between the living and non-living.

I scoured the internet for the pictures I used for each card.  While I tried to focus on variety, keeping in mind that the majority of cards would have to be vertebrates, I did make an effort to put in plenty of animals that are native to our area, such as the ruffed grouse (bottom left), which is a popular game bird in New Brunswick.

After separating living from non-living we take our pile of living and divide them up between "Plants" and "Animals."  Yes, I know that there are more categories of living things than just those two, but as they are the most common and encompass almost every living thing with which a child is familiar we focus on them.  Fungus, protozoa, bacterium, etc. can come later.

 Most of this sorting Ella found very easy, but I tried to keep her on her toes.  The Venus flytrap, being carnivorous, gave her a moment's pause.  And she was convinced for a long time that coral must be a plant, which I grant you, is not an illogical conclusion!

This particular pile of cards only had three samples of plants.  Our discussion of the tree trunk was interesting as the tree itself was dead, and therefore neither living or non-living, but it was covered in moss (which was my target species) and the moss was clearly alive.  Ella decided that rather than having just two initial categories there should be three: living, non-living, and formerly-living/dead.  After all, wood was once a tree, and the radishes can't really be living if they've been pulled up out of the ground, chopped up, and pickled!  Smart girl.

After the plant/animal division, we take the animal cards and divide them between vertebrates and invertebrates.

Categorizing animals this way is a bit more challenging.  Because you can't actually see the backbone or spine in a vertebrate you have to think through how an animal moves, how it lives, and what its surface feels like.  Ella is just beginning to remember consistently to look for segmentation of the animals' bodies, hard exteriors such as shells (an exoskeleton), and over-all "smooshiness" (that the body is completely smooshy or soft, indicating that there are no bones).  

Again, putting in tricky cards gives the opportunity to discuss the "why is it this one and not that one?" question.  Above I included a sea horse.   Ella concluded initially that it was an invertebrate because it appears to have an exoskeleton, even though it is a fish, though like catfish sea horses do not have scales. 

Following the organization of the vertebrates and invertebrates we take the pile of vertebrates and then comes the real sorting fun!

With five categories to chose from there's a lot more room for error.  Each animal has to be evaluated in several different ways: what kind of "skin"  it has and/or if it has a skin covering (hair, fur, feathers), whether it gives birth to babies or lays eggs, if it lays eggs whether it lays them on land or in water, if the offspring look like miniatures of the parents or if they have another form entirely, if it has a mouth or a beak/bill, how it breathes, where it lives, if it is warm or cold blooded, and how it feeds its babies.  There are hosts of conversations to be had as we work through these cards, and I frequently find that Ella and I end up laughing, especially at odd animal behaviour or appearance.

Amphibians.  They have slimy skin, live in or near water, are cold-blooded, lay eggs in water, have babies that look nothing like themselves and whom they completely ignore, and usually can breathe right through their skin.  Their appearances have little variation: frogs and toads look similar as do salamanders and newts.  To give a bit more variety I've tried to include pictures of amphibians at various stages of development.

Mammals.* We are warm-blooded, have fur or hair, live all over,  breathe air with lungs, give birth to babies that look similar to the parents (usually!), and feed our offspring with milk from our own bodies.  Isn't it great to be a mammal?  There are quite a few unusual mammals, like whales, manatees, platypuses, etc.  It can be fun to emphasize the similarities between humans and other mammals, as well as the differences.  Thank God for opposable thumbs!  Plus, as a nursing Mum, it's interesting to discuss how other species nurse.  In the case of whales, Ella would not believe me that they were mammals until I found a video of a beluga whale giving birth and nursing her baby!

Fish.  They live in water, are cold-blooded, and breathe through gills.  Some species give birth to live young, but most lay eggs.  The level of parental involvement is usually low to nonexistent.  Although there are three different classes of fish, for the young child and early elementary student so many details can be confusing, so I lumped all the fish together.  When (or if) I ever have time to set up an aquarium again we will certainly get into closer examination of fish classes.

Birds.  Feathers, beaks, wings, and two legs are the most easily recognizable traits.  They are warm-blooded, breathe air with their lungs, lay eggs, and are frequently attentive parents.  One of their families (the penguins) are even able to survive in the harshest climate on earth and one of their species (emperor penguins) stay in that climate during its harshest season in order to go to extraordinary lengths for the purposes of mating, bearing, and raising offspring.  In my opinion, birds are way cool!

Reptiles.  Some like life where it's hot and dry and others would prefer to stay wet all day long.  But they all have scales, breathe with their lungs, are cold-blooded, lay eggs on land, and their babies look like miniature adults.  They are also very good for frightening grandmothers and mothers when brought in from outside with a cheerful, "Look what I found, Mum!"  (Please note: this refers to something my brother did to my mother and grandmother, not something my children did to me.  I would not be so chicken-hearted... I hope!)

After all the sorting has been done, we clip each section together with other cards of the same category, to play with and discuss later.

Eli added his own artistic touch to the non-living card!

And, as is so often the case with homeschooling Montessori Mums, how to store materials effeciently is of great concern, so here's what I did.  I found this tray and this box at the local Dollarama store.

The tray perfectly fits half of an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper (or cardstock), which is what I used for the category titles, and the small crate is perfect as a card holder!

*Please note:  While all the photographs taken above were mine, the pictures in the photographs are not.  They were all found online through Google search.  The human family in the mammals is unknown to me, but it was the best photo I could find of nude humans that was neither graphic (in the negative sense) nor of poor quality.  Since all the other animals were au naturel, I figured it was only fair that the humans were as well.  For the record, I think it is a beautiful and tasteful photo... though I don't think I'd be comfortable with my family posing in such a manner, or at least displaying it!

Sex Ed.

Got your attention, huh?

So, sex ed. isn't something that is covered in any of the Montessori curricula that I've ever seen. But we're starting zoology soon, so that may change! And honestly, there is probably little need for most parents to even consider the question of sex education until their child is a fair bit older. Typically kids don't register things like that until they're 9 or 10. Then again, I speak as a child of the 70's and 80's - nowadays you can barely get away from overt sexuality unless you join a convent, and even then!!! Advertisements, tv shows, magazines, even cartoons, for heaven's sake, are suggestive. I didn't want to be caught unawares, and I was prepared, even before Ella was born, to have a handy, simple answer when the question "Where do babies come from?"

You see, I really don't want to lie to my child, and I don't want her to ever go through the terror that my grandmother did when, at the age of 13, she believed that all her internal organs were beginning to fall out. Her mother hadn't bothered to tell her about menstruation.

My mother feels similarly to me, which is why I've never felt really embarrassed about sexuality and rather considered it pretty normal and natural. It never became a "big deal," at least not in the sense that it does to most hormone-driven teenagers.

I really wanted the same for my children. I didn't want them to be weirded out by their own bodies, or by the bodies of others, and I didn't want them to perceive the world as a place where sexuality was more important than the person, even though it does make up a part of each one of us. Basically, I want my children to know the facts, to treat them as facts, and to preserve their innocence until they are really ready to understand more.

Most people, when they hear a statement such as "preserve their innocence" would assume that means "preserve their ignorance," but often the opposite is true. If someone is familiar with something, then the deep curiosity and the rush that comes from it being taboo can't exist. And let's face it, procreation is something that inspires a lot of curiosity in all kids, and if that curiosity isn't met with age-appropriate explanation then curiosity will become experimentation.

I cannot express how surprised I was when Ella, who at the time was all of 2 1/2 years old, asked me how babies were made. No, at 2 1/2 she didn't phrase it that way! We had been with family visiting, and as usual, the men gravitated towards the kitchen and the women to the living room. Among the women was a cousin who was soon to give birth, so of course much of the conversation revolved around pregnancy and babies. Ella must have been listening closely!

About two nights later, while laying in bed snuggling, Ella asked, "Mummy, dere is a baby in cousin's belly?"

"Yes," I said, "Cousin is going to have a baby, and right now the baby is inside her growing."

Her face twisted up, considering this, and then she followed up by asking, "Mummy, how de baby get in cousin's belly? How de baby get out of cousin's belly?"

As I said before, I was ready for this, though I had never thought that I would need to be so soon! I told Ella I'd be right back and I grabbed the book, Where Willy Went: The Big Story of a Little Sperm by Nicholas Allan.

This book is written on two levels. The first level constitutes a very gentle and simple retelling of the facts of life. All the sperm are anthropomorphized, having characters, attitudes, and aspirations. Of course the greatest aspiration is to win the "great swimming race" and winning the grand prize: the egg.

Visually, it is anatomically correct without getting too graphic (although I suppose that depends on what you consider to be "graphic"), and it does get the general idea across without getting into the "nitty gritty." Outside of "sperm" and "egg" you won't see any other technical terms (penis, testicles, vagina, uterus/womb, etc.), leaving exactly how much to explain entirely up to the parent.

The same is true when the "great race" occurs. There are anatomically correct "maps" given to the racers, but as you "watch" the race all you see is the interior corridors, not how they're all connected. As for that is it carefully "slipped over" as the adult protagonists (Mr. and Mrs. Brown) are only shown in bed, completely and totally covered with blankets. What exactly happens beneath those blankets is up to the imagination.

The same is true yet again when it comes to the birth. Mrs. Brown gracefully goes from greatly pregnant to holding a baby in her arms in the hospital without reference to any pushing, stretching, or pain. So again, it's up to the parent to decide how much they want to explain to their child.

The second level upon which this book is written is an humourous, tongue-in-cheek perspective for adults. This is both a wonderful addition and a bit of a distraction. It can be tough to explain to a young child what is so funny when, buried beneath blankets during the great race, Mrs. Brown cries out, "Come on, Willy!"

Ella's reaction, at 2 1/2, after I had finished reading (and explaining some parts) was priceless: "Mummy, dat is amazing!" When I went on to draw the parallel that if you replaced Mr. Brown with Daddy and Mrs. Brown with Mummy then the baby would be Ella, she wasn't as impressed. "Oh no!" she said, slowly and seriously. Then added, a bit more adamantly, "No, no, no, no, no!" So we just left it at that!

Now that I'm expecting, Ella's had a renewed interest in reproductive health. And because we've done some anatomy in school, she also wants to know the names of parts and how they work.

Part of teaching such things is also remembering to teach when talking about such things is appropriate. It is not appropriate to tell one of the deacons, "Boys have a penis and girls have a vulva!" Nor is it appropriate to explain to your grandfather the way the placenta and umbilical cord work to deliver food, blood, and oxygen to the baby in the midst of dinner. On the other hand, it is okay to say, while helping me change a baby's diaper, "Mummy you missed wiping up some poop behind his testicles." Take my advice - don't forget to add this aspect to sex education, because if you don't, you'll end up embarrassed!

One other book we used a lot for reproductive education (in this case human gestation - though I didn't use those terms with Ella) was Peter Tallack's In the Womb: Witness the Journey from Conception to Birth through Astonishing 3D Images. I found this at our local library and Ella was fascinated by all the pictures. I'd simplify the explanations so she could understand, more or less, what she was looking at. She loved it so much that she took it to her grandparents, showed them the pictures and explained to them what the photos were!