Today the kids in class were tasked with making their own dichotomous keys. They had to come in with some collection of their own that they wanted organize.
Some of the items they are talking about organizing are: roosters, nail polish, shoes, t-shirts, hats, bracelets, ear rings, music instruments, socks, cowboy boots, balls, head-bands, bows, etc. They are really working hard on how to classify their items. They are asking questions about their items' characteristics. Is it Nike or not? Does it have stripes or not? Is it shiny or not? These questions put our items into categories to make sorting and naming them easier and more organized. They are the scientist and get to decided what goes where and why.
I have told them to bring their collections into class on Wednesday or at least have pics of at least 10 items in a Google doc to use in class. I had a student email me pictures of 10 different roosters that he will be using to make his dichotomous key with. After we are done we will test our keys out to see if they work or not!