For hands-on activities involving snails, insects, squid, and starfish that connect science with real life, choose Animals without Backbones. This book, designed with good science and easy teaching in mind, covers these concepts:animals without backbones are called invertebratesinvertebrates are classified by their body characteristicsmost kinds of invertebrates live in the oceaninvertebrates have developed different ways of acquiring foodinvertebrates' movements are adapted to the animals' needsinvertebrates have developed many forms of self-defensesome invertebrates build homesActivities help children practice skills in: observation, analysis, communication, making comparisons, prediction, critical thinking, and recording. Areas of study address major themes such as: change, structure, function, diversity, and cause and effect.Samples of the hands-on learning experiences:observe and record information about invertebrates kept in the classroom-spiders, ants, earthworms, snailsexamine shells and exoskeletons of ocean invertebratesraise mealworms to observe a complete metamorphosisexperiment to find out what kind of foods ants preferdesign an insect that is camouflaged to "hide" in the classroomContains many reproducible, ready-to-go resources, such as record sheets, logbook forms, minibooks, and picture cards. Illustrated throughout with fun, yet accurate animal line art. All 80 pages perforated for easy removal.