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Hi! I'm currently a student teacher in a first-grade class and I was just wondering how do you keep students engaged in learning about simple things like living vs nonliving things at such a young age? Are there any experiment recommendations or demonstrations I could try?

Hello Ariana,

Below is the link to a video that might help students stay engaged when learning about living and nonliving things. It can become an interactive video where you pause it and ask students the respond to the questions on the screen. Then to continue on with your living and nonliving things, you could have students cut out a variety of pictures (21st C. Skills) and sort them into living and nonliving categories. Finally, to assess their learning, you could have them complete a Venn diagram that involved stating the difference between living and nonliving things, including objects that are in each category; this could be a formative assessment that helps you recognize what your students know. 

Link: Living Thing and Nonliving Things

I think any person who has worked with elementary students can relate to the struggle of keeping little minds engaged for a longer period of time. I am personally a fan of getting kids up and moving or outside the classroom as much as possible. When looking at living versus nonliving things, I think the kids would be super engaged in some sort of scavenger hunt where they are able to go outside to physically see and touch living and nonliving things in a different environment than the classroom. I believe that incorporating games where students are able to explore in a fun or competitive environment will help their engagement significantly. Like Alexandra mentioned above, stations can also be an engaging way to have the students be up and moving. With stations, one of the benefits in terms of engagement, is that because students are only at a station for a short period of time before they move to the next station, they are able to be exposed to new activities, rather than sitting in one spot focused on one activity for an entire lesson.