Children may slip from one meaning to another without being
aware of the differences in meaning, i.e., children use the
concept labels of living and non-living differently than do
adults or scientists. For example, plants are not living things to
some young children because they do not move. However,
the same children consider some non-living things, such as
clouds, to be living things because they appear to move in the
sky. Finally, children’s ideas and the applications of their ideas
may depend on the context in which they are used