This week we will be doing a Mini-Science unit on Non-living vs. Living. Most kindergartners have a great sense about what is living and what is not. But when pushed a little bit further to tell you why they know that, they can't tell you the "why" part. And this concept can be a little tricky! For example, most kids think a tree is a non-living thing . The main reason being that it does not have a face.
Then there is the discussion of non-living versus dead. For example they say a rock is dead. But in order for something to be dead it has to have been alive first.
So this week I thought we could have them explore this concept of Non-living and Living through a series of mini lessons each day this week.
Day One-
Print of a bunch of pictures of Non-living and living things. Then show the the pictures to the class and have the students raise their hands and have them tell you what they think it is. Either Non-living or living and why they think that. Dont tell them if they are right or wrong right away, let them discuss there answers with the other students and see what they all agree on. As the teacher I will lead the students at the start and if they seem to be getting lost or get off topic I will help them get back. While they are talking I will make a list of "How we know its living." All the reasons they come up with of why they know something is living.
When we get through the pictures we will go back to one they all agreed on was living and go through the list we made and talk about what is true about this living thing. And if the list has something on it that is not true for the living thing we will take it off our "How we know its living" list.
After we have gone through the entire list for that one picture we will do this again for another picture and so on. Until our list has the basics of how we know things are living have in common with each other.
*This could take more then one day
Day Two-
We will read asome book about Non-living and living things.
Are you living? A Song About Living And Non-Living Thing by Laura Purdie Salas
Living and Non-Living by Carol K. Lindeen
Living and Non-living by Angela Royston
While reading these books we will be adding to our class list.
Day Three-
I will have the students do a Non-living and living sort. I will have pictures of things we have talked about all cut out and ready to glue. I will give them to pieces of paper, one being Living the other Non-living.
Day Four-
I will have a chart made up with six different living and non-living things on it. The top will have five different criterial that we have talked about all week. They will have to answer if the thing meets that criteria and in the end if its Non-living or living.
This will be the end of the mini science unit on Non-living vs. living. But it will always come back into what we are going to be talking about the rest of the year!
Image 1: Amazon River cam used to observe the fish.
Image 2: Data collected from observation research.
