Classify Living and Nonliving Things

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

Let's be scientists!

An important job of a scientist is knowing how to sort or classify objects and things into groups. Today, you are going to learn how to classify things as living or not living (nonliving) things.

Think back to our first example. One picture was of a bear that was a toy and the other was a picture of a bear that was an animal. Which one is alive? Which one is not alive (nonliving)? A scientist would ask the following questions:

• What is needed by something to be classified as living?
• What is needed by something to be classified as nonliving?

Read below to find the answers to your questions!

A living thing:

• drinks water.
• breathes air.
• eats food.
• can move on its own.
• grows.
• reproduces babies like itself (cats have baby kittens, dogs have baby puppies, trees produce seeds that grow into trees).

A nonliving thing does not:

• drink water.
• eat food.
• breathe.
• move on its own.
• grow.
• reproduce.

Listen to a story to help you understand the characteristics (features) of living and nonliving things. The story is called What's Alive? by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld, presented by Franklin Elementary Zebrafish. You can listen to the story below:

Here is another great Smart Learning for All video to watch. It is called Living and Nonliving Things for Kids:

Continue on to the Got It? section to practice putting things into the correct categories.