Sorting Life: The Five Kingdoms

About This Resource

A complete Grade 6 science pack on classifying living things into five kingdoms: animals, plants, fungi, protists and bacteria (monera). Students read about the features of each kingdom, sort organisms, explain why a mushroom is not a plant, order the levels of classification from kingdom to species and read scientific names. Includes slides, a lesson plan, worksheet, quiz, homework, flashcards, a rubric and answer keys.

Overview

Scientists classify living things into groups based on shared features. In the five-kingdom system, animals are many-celled consumers that usually move; plants are many-celled producers with chlorophyll; fungi such as mushrooms and yeast absorb their food and are often decomposers; protists such as amoebas are mostly single-celled with a nucleus; and bacteria are single-celled organisms with no nucleus. Students read a short text, match kingdoms with their features, sort organisms and order the levels of classification: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. They also learn how two-part scientific names such as Homo sapiens are written.

Resource Details

Subject: Science
Topic: Classifying Living Things: The Five Kingdoms
Category: Living Things
File Type: PDF
File Size: 333.5 KB
Published: 12 Nov 2026
Downloads: 0

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Grade 6 science (ages 11–12) 55 minutes Life science classifying comparing scientific reasoning vocabulary

Learning Objectives

Describe the main features of the five kingdoms.
Classify organisms into kingdoms and justify the choice.
Order the levels of classification and read two-part scientific names.

How to Use This Resource

Show the slides: a mushroom, a fern, an amoeba and a dog. Ask: "Which two are most alike? Why?"
Read the text and do worksheet activities 1 and 2 together.
Students complete activities 3 to 6, then use the quiz and send the homework page home.

Classroom Activity Ideas

Kingdom cards: groups sort picture cards of 20 organisms into five kingdoms and explain tricky choices.
Is it a plant? Students debate whether mushrooms, seaweed and moss are plants, using features from the text.
Mnemonic challenge: students invent a sentence to remember kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.

Differentiation

Support: give a feature table with headings (cells, nucleus, food) and picture cards. Challenge: students research one organism that is hard to classify, such as euglena, and explain why.

Assessment

Use the worksheet and quiz to check knowledge of kingdoms and classification levels. Use the rubric to assess explanations and the homework classification.

Teacher Tips

Classification changes as scientists learn more. Many scientists now use three domains and more than five kingdoms, and bacteria are often split into two groups. The five-kingdom system is still a useful way to learn the main differences between living things. If students look at microscope slides of protists or bacteria, follow your school's safety rules.

What's Included

11-page printable PDF lesson pack: teacher lesson plan with timings, materials and differentiation
Key vocabulary list (8 words with meanings and examples)
Student worksheet (6 activities)
Quiz / assessment (3 parts)
Homework practice page
Printable flashcards: 8 A5 picture cards (separate PDF)
Assessment rubric (4 levels)
Lesson slides (editable PowerPoint)
Editable Word version of all student pages
Complete answer key (also as a separate PDF)

Additional Files

Lesson Slides (PPTX)
Editable Student Pages and Lesson Plan (DOCX)
A5 Flashcards (PDF)
Answer Key (PDF)

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