sorting animals

We have a heap of plastic animals. I've collected them for a long time. I started when I was teaching full time and our class were pen pals with another junior classroom in Canada. They posted us some really neat things from their country including plastic models of all of the natives animals of Canada. We sent them posters, toy kiwis, NZ coins, a buzzy bee, pineapple lumps and a copy of the Kiwi version of The Night before Xmas : ). Anyway over the years I've added to our collection by buying up most bags of animals that you can get from $2 type shops and coming across some in gallery stores,  tourist shops, fairs, op shops and garage sales. Both children love playing with them and last night we made up a fun activity I thought I'd share. We used the box the animals are stored in as a sort of 'stage'.

It's simple, I just asked them questions, the options are endless:

Show me some animals that can fly:

Can you find some animals that have pincers?

Find some animals that don't have legs

Show me some animals that live in Africa

yes T, there are caterpillars in Africa I'm sure

Show me some animals that are gentle to people

and some animals that could hurt you

scary dinosaurs

Animals that could live at our house

We also found and talked about:

animals that live in the sea
mammals
cold blooded animals
reptiles
insects
animals that lay eggs
animals with shells ( exoskeleton)
animals with 4 legs
animals with LOTS of legs
poisonous animals