Look at these seven Irish living things: badger, heron, earthworm, bee, fern, oak and frog. They are all different. What features could we use to put them into clear groups?

Look at our seven cards again. When we classify, we sort living things into groups that share a clear feature, and we say why each one belongs.

Try a quick first split with me: plant or animal? Oak and fern go one way; badger, heron, earthworm, bee and frog go the other.

The feature we just used is our criteria: the thing we chose to sort by. Which other feature could split the animal group next?

Now watch a branching key: a path of yes-or-no questions that splits a set step by step. Five cards appear on the board: worm, ladybird, spider, snail and ant. We will only sort them into clear leg groups for now, so you can see how a clean question works.

Which first question is better: "Does it have legs?" or "Is it colourful?"

Your group has seven Irish living things: badger, heron, earthworm, bee, fern, oak and frog. Choose the criteria you will sort by. Pick from the board menu and use a clear feature you can check by looking:

• Kind of living thing — plant or animal
• Habitat — lives mainly in or beside water, or mainly on land
• Body parts or movement — legs or no legs
• Diet (animals only) — eats plants or eats other animals (use only after you have split off the plants). If it eats both, or eats dead bits of plants and animals, choose a different feature for that pile (legs, habitat, or movement).

Make a first sort into clear groups and be ready to say why each living thing sits where it does. Every card must have a home.

You are writing a tool someone else can use — that is real classification work.

Turn your sort into a multi-step branching key on one master A4 sheet for your group. Copy the indented layout from the board (do not invent a new layout):

Worked mini-example (both branches filled — copy this shape):

Criteria: kind of living thing

Q1: Is it a plant?

YES path
Q2: Is it a tree?
→ yes → oak
→ no → fern

NO path
Q2: Does it have legs?
→ no → earthworm
→ yes → (next question for the ones with legs)

How your group builds (in this order):

• First, agree Question 1 and split the seven cards into two piles.
• Then, together, write one full path to named ends on the master sheet (copy the YES-path plant example shape if it helps).
• Last, finish the other branch so every card has a named end.

Your key has done its job once both the YES path and the NO path of Question 1 take at least two yes-or-no steps and finish on the name of a living thing, and if you have time left you can add more branches. Every question must be a yes-or-no one, because another group will follow your key without seeing your cards, so each answer has to be something they can check by looking.