Jennifer Dickey

Science Lesson Plan

Living and Nonliving Lesson Plan

  1. Purpose:
  • The purpose of this lesson is to understand the difference between things that are living and nonliving. Students will begin classifying objects as living or nonliving. The students will also begin to discuss what living things need to survive.
  • NSES Standard C Life Science: Characteristics of organisms
  • SOL: K.6 The student will investigate and understand the differences between living organisms and nonliving objects. Key concepts include

a) All things can be classified as living or nonliving; and

b) Living organisms have certain characteristics that distinguish them from nonliving objects including growth, movement, response to the environment, having offspring, and the need for food, air, and water.

  1. Objective:
  • The students will be able to sort objects into the categories or living and nonliving given a list of ten words and pictures with 80% accuracy.
  1. Procedure: Includes three components
  2. Safety Concerns: There are no safety concerns with this lesson.
  3. Introduction
  4. What does it mean if something is living?
  5. What does it mean if something is nonliving?
  1. Development
  • We are going to play a game. Each student will be given a card with an object on it. There will be a line on the carpet that divides it in half. One side will be labeled living and the other nonliving. Students then stand on the side of the rug where their object belongs (kinesthetic).
  • To learn more about living and nonliving things we are going to read the book What’s Alive?(Auditory).
  • After everyone has chosen his or her side I will do a quick inventory to see if everyone is on the right side. We can use this to talk about how we decided if something was living or nonliving.
  • Questions during read aloud:
  • How do you think that we are like birds, flowers, cats, and trees?
  • How do you think we can tell if something is a living thing?
  • What makes plants different from animals?
  • What questions can we ask ourselves to find out if something is living or nonliving?
  • After the read aloud we will talk about the differences between living and nonliving, the questions we use to decide if something is living or nonliving, and what living things need.
  • The final activity will be a sort where students draw and write objects under living and nonliving as well as sort cut out pictures.
  • Differentiation: Advanced students will get harder objects to classify and they can also help others sort their objects. Struggling students will have easier cards and will be able to have help sorting their object.

5E’s

  • 1st E: ENGAGEMENT: Questions before Read Aloud and the book What’s Alive?
  • 2nd E: EXPLORATION:The students will play a game classifying objects as living or nonliving. This uses the process skills of communication and classifying.
  • 3rd E: EXPLANATION: I will then talk about what the difference between living and nonliving is. As well as what living things need.
  • 4th E: EXPANSION: The students will then come up with their own examples of living and nonliving objects.
  • 5th E: EVALUATION:The students will have a piece of paper folded in half labeled with living and nonliving. They will then draw or write in objects that fit under each category. Students will also have pictures to cut out and glue into the proper category.
  1. Summary
  • At the end of the activity, we will all come back together at the carpet.
  • What questions can help us decide if something is living?
  • What do living things need?
  • How are living things different than nonliving things?
  1. Materials needed for the lesson
  2. Book: What’s Alive?
  3. Cards with living and nonliving objects
  4. Painters tape (to divide carpet)
  5. Living/ Nonliving labels
  6. Chart
  7. Living/ Nonliving cutouts
  8. Evaluation Part A:
  9. I will assess student’s knowledge during the game, making sure each student knows if his or her object is living or nonliving.
  10. The sort will be assessed for accuracy based on students getting at least 8 out of the 10 pictures into the correct category.
  11. Evaluation Part B:

Overall I was a little disappointed in how my lesson went. Most of the students met my objectives, however some of them got a little confused. In the book I was given to use with this lesson, it talked about how if an animal or plant has died then it is still considered living. This caused a lot of confusion. One student drew a tree with leaves as living and a tree without as nonliving. There were only a few students that did not get the difference and I think that it will take further lessons to clear up misconceptions. For the most part their work demonstrated an understanding. We were unable to do the picture sort because of time constraints so to make up for missing this step I had them explain their pictures to me and asked questions to see if they truly understood the topic. The lesson also felt out of place in the unit. The teacher told me to do the lesson on classifying living and nonliving. However, the unit we are working on is all about Earth Day and the rainforest habitat. We were able to talk about living and nonliving parts of the rainforest habitat, which did tie it together a little better.

One of the strengths of my lesson was accommodating the different needs of the students. This is a kindergarten class and we have students on many different levels. To keep everyone working on the same activities I tweaked things. For example, during my game the students who are more advanced had trickier cards and the strugglers were able to ask their friends for help. With the drawing assignment the students who finished quickly wrote sentences telling me about their drawings and why they went into that category. The students who are not writing sentences yet sounded out their words or told me about their pictures. I also tried to make sure that we were not just sitting the whole time. We started out with the sorting game and then sat back down to read the book. Each section was a small chunk of time to keep their attention. I will say that my classroom management was much weaker this time than in previous lessons. Being just a couple of days before spring break the students were very hyper and talking about their travel plans. I also was not on my A game today because I’ve been sick. I feel like I was not as excited and into the lesson as I usually am. If I were to teach this lesson again I would include the sort as an assessment tool. I might also use a different book. Overall, I think the lesson went well. It was definitely hard trying to fit everything into the small time period. I also learned that the kids really pick up on your excitement. It’s hard to act like you are excited to be teaching a lesson when you do not feel well, but you have to still show the students that its important. I think I was able to do that fairly well (other than the coughing fits).