Lesson Plan and worksheets

on
Characteristics of Living Things

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 Characteristics of living things

Pre-requisite knowledge/skills:

Learning outcomes: The students will be able to:

Identify the seven characteristics of living things

Differentiate between living and non-living

Infer that living things have modifications according to their habits, need and habitat.

Materials / resources required: Chart, fact sheet

Essential Unit Questions:

What are the characteristics of living things

What are the criteria of classification of plants and animals?

Time Class setting/ Learning Sequence

Resources
10mins Whole class Introduction:
Have the students to take out their home assignment and
ask if any one faced any difficulty. Have the students read
out their answers and discuss them.

Show to the students a few samples of living and non-living

things and ask them to tell the differences between them.

Solicit the reply that they can be classified as living or non-

living, natural or man-made.

Ask them what they understand by living and non-living

things by giving examples.

Whole class Phase 1: Instructional Process

discussion/Group
20 min Tell the students that the following activity is a group
activity/half chart
work. Each group has to write down what they think are
paper the characteristics of living things.
Ask how can they differentiate between living and non-
living things?
Divide the class into groups.
Phase 2:

After the groups have finished their work ask them to read
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 out their answers and using mind mapping tool given as
reference write on the blackboard the seven main
characteristics of living things

Ask students:
What are the different characteristics of livings thing?
Conclude by saying that the main differences are:
Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Nutrition,
Reproduction, Excretion, and.

Lets now take up each characteristic and discuss about it.

Movement:
Ask the students what they understand by
movement.
Why do living things move?
How do insects, birds, fishes, etc move?
Do plants also move?
How do animals move?
Why do they move?
Respiration:
What is respiration?
Do plants also respire/how do plants breathe?
How do they breathe?
How do animals breathe? (Land, water, worms and
insects)
Sensitivity:
What do you understand by sensitivity?
When you prick your hand what do you do?
When you see some insect near your eye what do
you do?
What happens when you feel very cold?
What are the different sense organs?
Do you think plants are also sensitive?
Growth:
Ask: What is growth?
Do all living things grow?
How do plants grow?
Give an example?
Do animals show growth?
Reproduction:
What is reproduction?
Why do living things reproduce?
How do plants reproduce?

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 Where are seeds produced?
How do animals reproduce?
Excretion:
What is excretion?
Why do living things excrete?
How do animals excrete?
What do they excrete?
Do plants have any organs for excretion?
Nutrition:
What is nutrition?
Why do living thing need food?
How do animals produce food?
How do plants produce food?
Why are leaves green?
Name the process through which plants make their
own food?

Tell the students that living thing must have all the MRS
GREN characteristics to be classified as living.

10 mins Group Phase 3:

work./enlarged copy
After the mind mapping on the BB, the students have to read
of the incomplete
the fact sheet and complete the in-complete mind map.
mind map/fact sheet

10 mins Paired work/ Phase 4:

worksheet
After the group the students will work in pair and complete
the table on the work sheet.

5 Whole class/work Phase 4:

mins sheet
Feedback:
Whole class Closure:
Ask the students:
What are the characteristics of living things
What are the differences between plants and animals
Home work worksheet

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 Fact Sheet

Characteristics of living things

1. MOVEMENT

Most living things move. Living things move in order to survive.

Plants move but do not move their position. They are able to move
parts of themselves.
Plants move their roots towards water and towards the centre of the earth. They move their
stems and leaves towards light.
Animals move to keep themselves safe and to look for food.
Some animals move on land, air and water.

2. RESPIRATION

All living things need oxygen to stay alive. They use oxygen to turn
food into energy.
To obtain oxygen from the air, animals and plants exchange gases
between themselves and their surroundings.
Green plants exchange gases with their surroundings through holes in
the under-surface of their leaves. These holes are called stomata.
Animals have different organs of breathing depending in the habitat they stay.
.

Worms get oxygen through

Most land animals
have lungs.
3. SENSITIVITY:
Fishes, which live under
the surface of their skin, and
water, obtain oxygen insects use breathing tubes
using gills called trachea.

All living things react to stimuli. This means they are sensitive to changes in their
surroundings and react to them.

All animals are sensitive to what is happening around them.

Example we shiver when it is cold. We withdraw our hand when
we touch a hot thing. Some animals have complicated nervous
systems and brains. They have a sense of taste, sight, hearing,
touch and smell.

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 Plants also respond to stimuli, but in a different way to animals. Some plants turn towards
the sunlight. Their roots sense and move towards water. The sun flower turns its face towards
the sun, during the day and droop when the sun has set.

4. GROWTH

All living things grow. This means they increase their size. They can grow taller. They can
grow wider.

Plants grow taller and wider. Seedlings grow into

bigger plants. Plants increase their size in all Baby animals grow into adult animals.
directions. And their shape is changing all the Animals also grow taller and wider, but
time. can only increase their size in a definite
shape.

5. REPRODUCTION
All living things reproduce, this means that they make copies of themselves before they die.
.

Some animals reproduce by laying Mammals like dogs, cow, rabbits etc give
eggs. birth to you to young ones. The mother
Frogs, snakes most fish and insects lay suckles the young ones with her milk. Man
eggs. When the young ones of these is also a mammal.
animals hatch they have to take care
Plants which have flowers reproduce from seeds. The new seedlings then grow into plants.
Other plants grow from spores and cuttings.
6. EXCRETION

Living things have to remove the harmful effects of waste products from their body.
Some of these waste products are: carbon-di oxide, nitrogen and water.
.
Animals, such as humans, cats,
dogs, remove the harmful effects of
the gas carbon dioxide by breathing
out. They also breathe out water
vapor. The main organs which
remove nitrogen waste from the
body are the kidneys

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 Plants also produce waste nitrogen, but only in small amounts. They do not possess organs
to remove it, so store it in some of their cells after they have turned it into a harmless
substance. Some harmful wastes are excreted from the bark of the tree.

7. NUTRITION
Animals do not
make their own
All living things feed. They feed to supply themselves with energy.
food. They feed on
plants, other
animals, and on
dead waste.

Most green plants make their own food. They make their food
from the simple raw materials carbon dioxide and water. The
green color (chlorophyll) in the leaves together with sunlight
allows carbon dioxide and water to be combined. This process
is called photosynthesis.

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 Worksheet 1
Using MRS GREN criteria of classification write the differences between plants and
animals.

PLANTS ANIMALS

Worksheet 2

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 1) Draw 2 pictures of each of each of the following.

Natural things

Man made things

Living
Non-living things

2) Write the names of two items in the class room that were:

Living

Once living but now dead

Never living

3) What are the similarities and differences between plants and animals?

4) How do the following animals breathe? Draw and write their names of the organs.

Worms

Insects

Fishes

Birds

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 Short answer types
1) What are the seven characteristic of living things?
2) How do green plants make their food?
3) What are the different sense organs?
4) Where are seeds produced?
5) Do plants have any organs for excretion?
6) What is nutrition?
7) Why are leaves green?
8) How do plants breathe?
9) What is the difference between the growth of plants and animals?

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 Worksheet 3

Using MRS GREN criteria for classification complete the table given below. Identify if its
living or non-living.

Thing M R S G R E N Living/Non-
living

Computer
mouse

Cockroach

Mushroom

Rock

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Sprite

Nail

Clouds

Tree

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