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Living and Non Living Things

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Core Learning Experience + Supplies and Equipment

• ​The idea here is to demonstrate one of the ways to categorize things in our world, into living things, nonliving natural things, and human-made things.  Use photos or real items.  This will need lots of discussion and experience before the children can do the categorizing themselves.
• Provide many opportunities for handling and exploring all kinds of natural items.
• Show a set of photos – find something that can move by itself.  Find something that eats food.  Find something that doesn’t grow.  Have the children ask you to find things, too.

Possible/Expected Discoveries

• ​Living things need food and water to live; they grow and change; they have babies/reproduce; self-directed movement; breathing/respiration; sensitivity to environment.
• Plants are also living things. Can they move by themselves?  Movement goes on inside them, when they use nutrition from the earth to grow.  Their babies are seeds. 
• Show 2 items, one obviously living (earthworm, insect, spider, cat etc) and one obviously not (rock, plate, toy etc) Observe similarities and differences.  Of course all the differing characteristics will not be noted, but this will provoke discussion and thought.
• People and animals are alive.  They can move by themselves, breathe, have babies, eat.  Living things can also die.

Extended Learning and Other Curriculum Areas

• ​​Create a large chart categorizing thins that are living, and things that are non-living.  Label them.
• Older preschoolers can work on a Venn diagram (two large overlapping circles).  In one circle, put natural things, in the other circle put human-made things and in the overlap, put things that have components of both human-made and natural.  This will take a lot of thinking and discussion.  Some ideas for human made/natural might be – a natural fiber rug; cotton clothes; flowers in a pot; paper; leather shoes etc.

Activity Packs and Printables

Living or not living? Lots or real photos and printables. 47 pages. $4.50

Living and Non-Living Things - PreK level. $3.75

Websites

​http://www.saburchill.com/chapters/chap0001.html

Books

What's Alive? (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 1) - Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld ​