This 5th grade life science sheet compares skeletal, smooth and cardiac muscle across two pages. Students fill a three-column chart with where each muscle is found, what it does and whether it is voluntary or involuntary, using a fact bank. Then they sort eight everyday examples, from kicking a ball to blood vessels narrowing in the cold, under the right muscle type. The third page is an answer key with both completed tables.
“Compare where skeletal, smooth and cardiac muscle are found and what each one does.”
The Part 1 chart covers location and job for all three types.
“Tell voluntary muscle actions from involuntary ones.”
The last row of the Part 1 chart and the Part 2 sort, where smiling and blinking on purpose are skeletal and the heart beating is cardiac.
Students copy facts from a pink fact bank into a chart with rows for where it is found, what it does and voluntary or involuntary. The bank holds nine short phrases, such as attached to bones and pumps blood, and two of them say involuntary.
Eight examples sit in a box: kicking a ball, the heart beating, food moving through the intestines, smiling, blinking on purpose, blood vessels narrowing in the cold, lifting a backpack and the heart speeding up during a race. Students write each one under skeletal, smooth or cardiac muscle.
Both completed tables. Skeletal muscle gets four examples, smooth muscle gets two and cardiac muscle gets two.
After teaching the three types
Hand it out once students have met all three muscles. The fact bank keeps the chart quick, so the sort on page 2 shows who can apply the ideas.
Blinking on purpose
Ask why blinking on purpose is on the list. Students separate a blink they choose from one the body does alone, and that talk sorts out the voluntary column.
Heart and blood vessels
Put the two heart examples next to the blood vessels one and ask what they share. Most students land on involuntary, which is the last row of the chart.
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