Vertebrates are one of my favorite topics to teach young ESL preschool and kindergarten students. Why? Because, like all life sciences, it is super interesting for students and allows plenty of learning opportunities—not only for learning English but also for activities that build critical thinking, matching, categorizing, and visually discerning information from observations. This means you will have plenty of cut-and-paste, hands-on activities to make your lessons action-packed and fun. 

What are vertebrates?

Vertebrates are animals with an internal skeleton that includes a backbone/spine. They are classified into five groups:

1. Mammals

2. Reptiles

3. Birds

4. Fish

5. Amphibians

These categories are defined by certain characteristics, most notably their skin type, whether they lay eggs or give live birth, whether they are warm or cold-blooded, and whether they have gills or lungs.

If you are wondering how to teach vertebrates as an ESL teacher—while prioritizing building language skills—the key is to first identify the keywords and sentence structures you wish to teach. Spend a week introducing and practicing the pronunciation of the vocabulary. Once they grasp that, slowly build up the sentence structure with high repetition for them to master.

Video Resources: Songs.

Hopscotch: Animal Classification: The Vertebrates Song

This song is brilliant, and the kids love it. They may not be able to sing most of the lyrics or understand the language in the verses as it is advanced, but the chorus lets them bellow out "Mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians, and fish." The graphics and styles of music are great. The kids couldn't get enough of this video and song and all shouted out the chorus, which definitely helped with the pronunciation of the five vertebrate classes.

Have Fun Teaching: Animal Song

This song is over 6 minutes long, but it’s fun and goes through all the vertebrate types with animals and actions to move to. The ending includes invertebrates. If you feel the song is too long, you can sing just the mammal part for lesson one, the reptile part for lesson two, and so on.

Dream English: It's a dog

Although this song doesn't explicitly identify these animals as vertebrates, all the animals featured are vertebrates. I use this song for the youngest 2-year-olds to help them pick up some animal vocabulary during the vertebrate unit.

Educational Videos

Smile and Learn English: Vertebrate Animals for kids: Mammals, fish, birds, amphibians and reptiles

I split this video into segments, focusing on each vertebrate class for one lesson. While the language can be complex, you can pause to explain and elicit key terms like "reptiles," "hard eggs," "soft eggs," "amphibians," "fur or hair," "dry scales," and "birds have feathers."

Happy Learning Kids: Vertebrate Animals | Educational Video for Kids

What I like about this video is that it shows the skeletons within the animals and the location of the backbone, which is useful for visually demonstrating that vertebrates have skeletons and backbones. You can easily elicit the language and sentences like "this is a backbone" and "vertebrates have a backbone." Like all these videos, the language can be difficult for many ESL 3-6 year olds, so it’s important to pause occasionally and elicit simple language for them to learn, such as "mammals have fur." 

Fun World for Kids: Vertebrate Animals for Kids (Educational Video for Kids)

As with the previous video, this one does a great job of showing vertebrate skeletons and backbones, allowing you the opportunity to pause and simplify the language you are teaching: "This is a mammal, it has a backbone," and so on.