Living and Nonliving

Our first science mini-unit is about living and nonliving things. It's a great way to transition into our next unit about plants (we focus on apples). After teaching them about what makes something living and singing this song about it, we go outside and search for living and nonliving things. 

Students fill out this chart to help them decide if something is living or nonliving. We usually do this activity with our 4th grade buddies so they have help navigating through this chart. It's their first introduction to using this "scientific chart" to organize their information.

We also do this science experiment with mealworms. Each group has a tray will mealworms and some small rocks. We compared the two using magnifying glasses. Which moved? Which needs food and air? Which would grow? We fill this out together:

Here are two worksheets I use for an assessment. 

 Finally, we make this class book. Copy two sided, so each student does a page about living and nonliving things.

You can download this at my  TPT store. 

This pack has been updated as of Sep. 2015! Click here to see the updates!!