Recognise Whether Something is Dead, Alive, or Never Been Alive

What does it mean if something is living, dead or never alive?

 

 

There are lots of life processes that tell us if something is living and we will focus on three of them today.
 

Something is living or alive if:

1. It is moving or can move - by itself

2. It is breathing

3. It can grow

 

Plants and animals are living things.

Let's look at some examples of living plants:

 

Apple tree	Rose bush	Carrot plant

 

These are three, living plants. They 'breathe' by using carbon dioxide from the air and sunlight to make their food. They use the food they make, nutrients in the soil and water to help them grow.

 

Believe it or not - all plants move! But they only move small amounts so it is hard to see it - you won't spot a carrot plant running away!

 

Here are some living animals:

 

Rabbit	Frog	Fish	Ladybird

 

All of the animals above are living things. They all breathe, move by themselves and can grow! Easy - right?

 

Now it gets a bit trickier. Something that is never alive might come from a man-made material, which is something that is not found in nature.

Here are three non-living things:

 

plastic chair	metal (aluminium) can	nylon jumper

 

Plastic, metal and nylon are all man-made materials. They exist because humans have used chemicals to make them, like plastic and nylon. Or the material has been mined from the ground and was never alive - like metals.

 

Finally, we have objects that are no longer living or dead.

 

Here are three no longer alive things:

 

wooden chair	bacon	wool hat

 

Each of the objects above was either taken from a living thing, or was once a living thing.

We get wood from trees, which makes the wooden chair now dead. Once a tree is cut down, it cannot breathe, grow, or move by itself, but it can be used for lots of different things.

 

 

Bacon is one kind of meat that comes from an animal - a pig. Many humans eat meat and to get this, the pig has to die, so the bacon, is now dead. When it was part of the pig, it was living and growing, but once the pig has been taken to be eaten, it can no longer live.

 

 

We get wool from sheep - it is their fur, cut off and used to make warm clothes. When the wool was attached to the sheep, it could grow and was part of a living animal. Like the wood, when the wool is cut, it cannot grow and is no longer alive - it is dead. However, it's important to understand that the sheep itself is still alive - it can have its wool sheared off without harming the sheep!

 

 

Today we will be sorting different objects into living, dead, or never alive.

 

Good luck!