Introduction
Ask the guiding questions:
What is alive?
What isn’t alive?
Talk about the difference between living and non-living things.
Write on a chalkboard or a big piece of paper, “Living” and “Not Living.” Share ideas about things that are living and not living and write them down in the appropriate column.
Take a look at all the living things. Share ideas about what they all have in common. Lead the discussion to identifying principles of all living things including: use food, give off wastes, grow, and can reproduce offspring like themselves.
Activity
Pass out the handout. Go over the names of living and non-living things in the left-hand column.
Look at the top of the chart to see the 4 main principles of all living things.
Explain the directions for completing this chart. Think about each thing in the left-hand column. Put a check in the box of every characteristic that it has. You might want to do the first one together.
Work alone or in pairs to complete the chart.