In 2007, the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney, Australia, hosted an exhibition titled: "Carl Linnaeus: The genius who brought order to the natural world." And that is an apt description. A video prepared by the Natural History Museum of London, and posted on its site, provides an introduction to Linnaeus. Preview the video for age-appropriate material. You may choose to show a portion of the production.
The basic Linnaean system follows this path: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Create a mnemonic using the first letters of the taxonomic listing. One fun mnemonic comes from Ducksters.com: Kids Prefer Cheese Over Fried Green Spinach. The green spinach -- actually genus, species -- is the binomial name for the animal. Having students fill in the information for these headings is the concrete part of learning the Linnaean system.
Keep it simple. Make family connections. Here's the polar bear taxonomy. Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Chordata, Class: Mammalia, Order: Carnivora, Family: Ursidae, Genus: Ursus, Species/Binomial Name: Ursus maritimus. Direct students to the Animal Diversity Web hosted by the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. Ask them to create the taxonomy for an American black bear. They discover the taxonomy is the same except the binomial name, which is Ursus americanus. The brown bear taxonomy is the same, the binomial name Ursus arctos. Ursus is Latin for a male bear.
The golden parakeet -- Guaruba guarouba -- was once called Aratinga guarouba -- until DNA tests revealed new information. The Linnaean system, while not perfect, helps scientists communicate with one language. The golden parakeet is also called the golden conure. Use the bionomial name Guaruba guarouba and there's no confusion. Don't sweat the pronunciation; do make interesting Latin word connections. Ursa -- Latin for female bear -- appears in astronomy with the constellations Ursa Major and Minor.