3rd Grade Classify Animals worksheets

About this worksheet

Scientists sort animals into groups by what they have in common. The biggest split is between animals with a backbone, called vertebrates, and animals without one, called invertebrates. Cats, dogs, fish, birds, frogs and whales are vertebrates. Snails, ants, bees, butterflies and octopuses are invertebrates. On this sheet a third grader looks at a picture of an animal and writes the one word that tells which group it belongs to.

Building Confidence uses animals everyone knows, On Level adds animals that are easy to mix up, such as a turtle or a snail with a shell, and Challenge Me includes animals such as the whale and the octopus, where how an animal looks can be misleading. Ask your child: does it have bones inside its body?

What your child will learn

• Say what a vertebrate and an invertebrate are
• Sort familiar animals into the two groups
• Explain why a whale is a vertebrate and an octopus is not

NGSS standard: 3-LS4-3