Because we’ve been talking so much about living/nonliving things, I wanted to see where the kids were in their understanding, so I set up 6 stations around the room (3 living/3 nonliving) and the kids had a chart to check out each of the items and answer a few questions in their science notebooks:

Here they are looking at a red worm. That kept their attention for AWHILE! 🙂

Why did you put a book on this plate Mrs. Poindexter? It’s just a book!  “Yes, it’s just a book, but what do you observe about it?” OH, they said! 🙂

Where’s the thing we’re supposed to observe?  Right there.  That’s a pencil.  I know, that’s what you’re supposed to observe.  But it’s a pencil.  I know! 🙂

More of the popular red worm! 🙂

Here the poor thing is curled up and scared. 🙂 He was later safely returned to his home in our compost box!

Noodles?  That’s silly Mrs. Poindexter!  You eat them!  So are they living or nonliving?

The meal worm out of the meal worm tank in our classroom–easiest classroom pet EVER and good for so many things! 🙂

These are 5 of the items I had out.  The 6th one was my assistant.  She sat at one of the tables and the kids had to figure out if she was breathing, moving, and if she would stop living one day, and then if she were living or nonliving.

The red worm…getting comfortable and all stretched out!

Pencil

Book

Noodles

Meal worm

These great dishes and bowls are from the kids section at IKEA.  They are so handy and I use them all the time to hold different materials.  The cups that match this set are great too–an awesome size for storing crayons and sorting them by color.

Kristen 🙂