I am planning a lesson this semester to teach a kindergarten class about classifying living and nonliving things. Does any one know of any good lessons, or have some good pointers for when I teach the lesson?
You could get fake insect manipulative for the students to observe and touch. The students can draw the environment in which the living things are located, and the students could also draw an environment where non living things would be located. Taking the kindergarten class outside to identify nonliving and living things could be a fun activity for the students also. I also used a website called teacherspayteachers.com that has tons of free activities/ worksheets that the students could use during or after the activity/lesson. GOOD LUCK!
Search the elementary journal, Science and Children, for "living" to see the list of many articles on teaching about the needs of living organisms and how they are different from non-living objects. http://www.nsta.org/elementaryschool/
One super fun lesson that I did with the students in one of my classrooms is have them go outside and find all the different bugs that they could on the playground. We then talks about how all of those different bugs moved and ate things in the environment. We then came back inside and I had fake bugs laid out on the tables. I asked the students if they thought the fake bugs on the table were living and they said "NO, thats plastic". I then talked with the students about the differences between the bugs we found outside and the fake bugs on the table. Soon, the class had defined living and nonliving without even knowing it. I then allowed the students to explore within the room and on the playground and draw pictures of living things they found and nonliving things they found. It was a great introduction to living and nonliving and really got them thinking about the different things they see daily and if it is living or nonliving.
This is such a great idea! It seems ideal for visual and kinesthetic learners.
I really like this idea. Looking for live bugs really engages the students and then comparing them to plastic ones shows what and how they are thinking.
If there's any way for you to teach the lesson outside, I would. Maybe if the school has a community garden or has a little area in the front with anything growing. Having children experience that environment of living and nonliving hands on is extremely beneficial for real-world explanations and it's much more literal then showing bringing in objects into the classroom.
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