Kindergarten Living or Not Living worksheets

About this worksheet

Kindergartners often decide that anything that moves is alive, which makes a car, a kite, or a floating balloon confusing. Scientists use a group of clues instead. Living things grow and need resources such as food, water, and air. Nonliving objects may move when something pushes them or the wind blows, but they do not eat, breathe, or grow on their own. On this worksheet every item is the same job: three familiar pictures of animals, plants and objects, and the child circles the one that is living.

Nothing is printed under the pictures, so the child names each one aloud and decides whether it grows and needs food and water. Support pages use very familiar animals and objects. Standard and challenge pages add plants that do not move and objects that do. Listen for the because in your child’s explanation. Saying ‘the cat is living because it needs food’ shows stronger understanding than simply circling a picture.

What your child will learn

• Sort examples as living or not living
• Know that living things grow
• Connect living things with food and water
• Avoid using movement as the only clue

NGSS standard: K-LS1-1