What are Characteristics?

What are characteristics?

Are characteristics inherited?

Animals and humans can pass on certain characteristics to their children through their genes. Some characteristics are passed down from our parents, while others can be passed down from our grandparents or even our great-grandparents!

Examples of characteristics that are inherited include:

• eye colour
• blood type
• hair colour
• whether you are right or left-handed
• whether or not you have freckles

What are some examples of animal characteristics?

Some of the features that help us distinguish between different animals include:

• whether they are warm or cold-blooded
• whether or not they hatch from an egg
• how they breathe (whether it is through gills or lungs)
• whether or not they have a skeleton.

What other types of characteristics are there?

Lots! As well as thinking about physical characteristics that we can inherit from our parents and grandparents, we can talk about the characteristics of non-living things, such as materials.

It can be really useful to think about the characteristics and properties of materials to help us decide what they should be used for and how to group them.

• Aluminum -a key characteristic of this material is that it doesn't rust, making it suitable for using to make drinks cans.
• Rubber - the fact that rubber is waterproof makes it a good material to make wellington boots with.

We can also use characteristics to help us define the qualities of how successful something is or what success in something looks like. For example, we might use the phrase 'these are the characteristics of effective learning', to help us understand what effective learning looks like.

What are some examples of characteristics?

Below are some examples of characteristics that you might come across. These examples of characteristics include character traits, as well as simply physical characteristics. There are lots of different types of characteristics that you’ll come across, so it’s important to understand them and the differences between them.

Physical characteristics

All concrete objects have physical characteristics. Whether it’s a household item, one of your pets, or a person, all of these different types of things possess physical characteristics and features. Here are some examples of characteristics for physical objects:

• Shape of the object: a chair in your house could be small, huge, round, or bumpy. All of these are examples of physical characteristics.
• Material of the object: that same chair in your house could be wooden and splintery, or smooth and shiny. Alternatively, your pet might have soft, spiky fur, or no fur. It might even have scaly skin.

These are just a few examples of characteristics of physical features that you might find.

Personality characteristics (or traits)

Living things also have characteristics that come from their personalities. Here are some examples of these characteristics of people’s personalities:

• happy
• annoying
• quiet
• fun
• uplifting
• mundane
• silly.

Can you think of any more examples of characteristics and which category they might fall into?

What are the characteristics of effective learning?

When we think about the characteristics of effective learning, we are focusing on how children learn, not what they learn. This model is most typically used at EYFS level.

The characteristics of effective learning are as follows:

• planning and exploring: encourage children to investigate and have a go at things
• active learning: children are able to concentrate and keep trying in order to overcome any hurdles
• creating and thinking critically: children are able to develop their own ideas and make links between things

Resources to support your teaching on this topic:

Here at Twinkl, we have a wide range of ready-made resources available to download across our website to support your teaching on this topic! Take a look at some of our top related resources below for some ideas on where to begin:

If you're looking for resources to support your teaching on inherited characteristics ...

Try our fantastic Inherited Characteristics Through the Generations Activity Sheets! This handy activity sheet pack provides children with examples of the characteristics of a child's parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. It then asks them to use this information to predict some possible characteristics of the child. A great hands-on learning activity!

If you're looking for resources to support your teaching on the characteristics of different animals ...

Then this printable Animal Characteristics Table is perfect! This engaging, teacher-made worksheet asks children to group animals based on different characteristics, such as whether or not the animal feeds its young with milk. This learning exercise is suitable for children to complete individually or in groups, so you can conveniently tailor it to your teaching needs!

If you're looking for resources to support your teaching on the characteristics of different materials ...

You might find our Characteristics of Materials Grid useful! This worksheet encourages students to find different objects and then classify them according to the characteristics in the table.

If you're looking for resources to support your teaching on the characteristics of effective learning ...

Look no further than our comprehensive Characteristics of Effective Learning Resource Page! Here, you'll find everything you need:

• visually engaging posters explaining this model for parents and children
• record sheets for teacher use
• colourful lanyard-sized effective learning cards

What's more, all of our resources have been created by qualified teachers. This means you can be certain that the materials you are using and providing are accurate, high quality, and up to date!