Needs of Living Things

Is a rock living? How about lima beans? You'll find everything you need for an interactive sorting activity exploring living and non-living things. 

Even as adults it can be hard to distinguish needs from wants. Using pictures of common, everyday items, children make a pocket chart separating the objects they need from those that they want. Discuss their choices, explaining that...

Students determine that environments have living and nonliving parts. They discuss what makes something a living thing and something a nonliving thing. They make a chart and list characteristics of living things and nonliving things.

What better way to learn about plant life than by creating a class garden? Young botanists start with a brief discussion about radishes before planting seeds and watching them grow. To determine the importance of water,...

Assess your class's knowledge of the needs of living things with the final lesson in a series. Given a large piece of paper and coloring utensils, young scientists draw a picture of themselves and a plant or animal of their choosing,...

It's alive! Or is it? Through a series of shared readings, whole class activities, and independent exercises children explore the difference between living and non-living things, creating a pair of printable books...

Young geologists discover the important role that rocks and minerals play in our everyday lives through this series of hands-on activities. Starting off with a lesson that defines the difference between plants, animals, and...

Explore the wonderful world of earthworms as your class learns about the requirements of animal life. After building soda bottle terrariums, learners observe worms over the course of a couple weeks, building an understanding that all...

Take a walk and observe living and non-living things on the way. Young scientists practice making valuable observations and draw the details.  You could require that your students complete a T chart of living and non-living things...

This is a pre-assessment to be done at the beginning of a unit on the needs of living things. Students draw themselves and what they need to survive. The lesson can be downloaded in PDF format.