If you look around you, you can see so many different things. They can be different objects, people, maybe a dog or a cat. In the sky, there is the sun. In the streets there are cars. In nature, there are flowers and trees.
Now, let's imagine that you and your friend are in the park. You are playing with a ball. There is grass under your feet, a bird on a tree, and flowers around. There is a bench in the park. A street is near you, and a car is passing. At the end of the street, there is a house.
Now, we are going to put all the things we imagined into two groups. We will name these groups living things and non-living things.
As you can see from the above table, you and your friend, birds, flowers, grass, and the tree, belong to the group named living things. In the other group, named non-living things, are the ball, the street, the car, the house, and the bench. The reason why we divided these things into two different groups is that the things in each group have common characteristics. But if we compare the things between both groups, we can state that they are different. The main difference between them is that the things in the first group, named living things, eat, grow, move, breathe, reproduce and have senses, while things in the other group, named non-living things can not do any of these, they do not have any kind of life in them. Actually, if we think about it, we can realize that everything in the world around us can be either a living or a non-living thing.
In this lesson, we will:
Living things are also called living organisms. Humans, animals, and plants are all living organisms. Living things are quite different from each other. We live in our homes, plants grow on the ground, and birds can fly in the sky. Some animals live in water, and some are inside the ground. But they all have common characteristics, and they need the same things to stay alive. The things that living organisms need to stay alive and survive are called basic needs. The basic needs of living organisms are the sun, water, air, food, and shelter.
Now, let's see what are the characteristics of all living things:
To confirm this, we can pick one living thing from the above table, and analyze if the certain living thing really has these characteristics. I will pick the girl. You can pick any other one.
The girl can breathe. She eats to stay alive, grow, and be healthy. Also, she can move, run, or jump. She was a baby before, born by her mom, which means by the process of reproduction. Now she is big, which means she can grow and will continue to grow. So, we can state that living things really have these characteristics.
Plants also breathe, but not as humans. They breathe through tiny holes in their leaves called stomata. And they use the energy from the sun, or other light and use it to make their food. Also, plants can not go from one place to another, like humans and animals, but they can move. Essentially, they move and grow toward the light. Plants reproduce by seeds or spores. These are small structures that develop on plants and then fall off the plant and may grow into new plants.
Now, that we know the characteristics of living things, we can try to identify the living things around us. There is a table below. In the first row, we will put some things that will imagine. The other rows are reserved for characteristics of living things. The last row is where we can make a conclusion if something is a living thing or not. If all characteristics are present, then we can make a conclusion that the thing is a living thing. If not, then it is a non-living thing. Let's start:
| Thing |  |
 |
 |
| Does it breathe? | Yes | Yes | No |
| Does it move? | Yes | Yes | No |
| Does it eat? | Yes | Yes | No |
| Does it reproduce? | Yes | Yes | No |
| Does it grow? | Yes | Yes | No |
| Is it a living thing? | Yes | Yes | No |
Non-living things include things that do not, eat, grow, reproduce, or breathe. A bicycle does not grow or eat, and it is not made of cells, it is made mostly of plastic and metal. A bicycle does not move unless a person is driving it. So, all the things that don't have the characteristics of living things, are considered non-living things. Such non-living things are cars, houses, stones, plates, vases, motorbikes, birdhouses, bottles, and many more.
*Activity for you:
If you want to identify more living things or non-living things, you can continue by drawing this simple table and entering new things. By confirming the characteristics of a thing, you can find out if a thing is living or non-living.
Some of the things are called once-living things. What does that mean? Something is classified as once-living if at one time it did have all the characteristics of life but now does not. The tree is a living thing. The leaves on a tree are living things too. But, a leaf that has fallen off a tree is not alive. This must mean that they are once-living things.
*Challenge for you: Think about if a fallen feather is a living, non-living or once-living thing.
Let's summarize!
Answer to the challenge: The fallen feather is a once-living thing, just like the fallen leaf.
