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UNIT 2 - Living Things

Topics Covered in Unit 2:

  • Differentiate between Living Things and Non-Living Things

  • Use vocabulary to identify plants, animals and their needs.

 

Four-year-olds can use their rapidly developing vocabulary and experiences to discuss plants, animals and their needs. Large group discussions and targeted small group instruction can be used to answer children’s specific questions.

Examples:

  1. notices the soil for a plant is dry and waters the plant

  2. asks the teacher if the pet crab can be fed

  3. explains to a teacher that some pet dogs have to be groomed

  4. participates in creating and following through with a KWL chart and topic study on a particular plant or animal

  5. plants a seed and records growth stages by completing science journal

  6. observes the life cycle of a mealworm as it turns into a beetle

  7. discusses the needs of the class pet (foot, water, shelter, space)

Four-year-olds have developed the vocabulary needed to analyze objects and determine which are obviously living and which are not. They begin to make the discrimination between living things such as plants and trees and natural items that are not living such as rocks or shells.

Examples:

  1. shows interests in items collected for the nature table

  2. compares and contrasts an artificial plant and a real plant

  3. participates in creating charts/lists of living and non-living things

  4. observes a living hermit crab in its shell and compares to an empty shell

  5. sorts picture cards into living and non-living