Animals and Their Needs

A simple assignment requires little life scientists to identify what is alive. Rain is falling, the sun is shining, birds are flying, fish are swimming, and students simply circle the items that are living.

Assess your class's knowledge of the needs of living things with the final lesson in a series. Given a large piece of paper and coloring utensils, young scientists draw a picture of themselves and a plant or animal of their choosing,...

Determine your class's prior knowledge about the necessities of life with this pre-assessment for a unit on living things. Learners draw pictures of themselves with all the things they need to live, grow, and survive. These drawings will...

How can you tell if something is living or nonliving? Introduce a set of criteria which can be used to determine which things are alive and which are not. The class discusses the basic needs of all living organisms, checks out an...

This is a pre-assessment to be done at the beginning of a unit on the needs of living things. Students draw themselves and what they need to survive. The lesson can be downloaded in PDF format.

A post-assessment at the end of a unit on the needs of living things. The lesson materials can be downloaded in PDF format.

This lesson focuses on living things' need for water. Students make lemonade and learn that water can be found in liquids other than a glass of water, and is also found in plants. The lesson can be downloaded in PDF format.

In this lesson, students watch video clips of animals and plants in their natural environment, to gather evidence that all living things have basic needs that must be met in order to survive. Then, to illustrate their understanding of...

This is a free downloadable teacher's guide (PDF) to teach young children (grades K-2) about living things and their needs.

Living things live in places that have what they need to survive. Since fish don't breathe air, they need to live in an ocean. That one is pretty obvious, but what about different kinds of trees? Can all animals that breathe air live...