Component 4: Life Science

By the following age ranges, children typically, for example:

Notice and investigate their own body parts (e.g., play with their fingers or toes)
Express their own needs and seek to get them met by crying, lifting their arms, and/or other attention seeking behaviors

Explore the characteristics of living things (e.g., petting a cat or dog and feeling its soft fur)
Begin to identify animals based on salient characteristics (e.g., call all animals with fur and four legs a “doggy”)
Begin to understand that they have different body parts that can be named (e.g., point to eyes, nose, and mouth when asked to do so)

Observe and respond to animals outdoors (e.g., when outside, follow a butterfly or insect to see where it goes)
Begin to distinguish different types of animals based on more specific characteristics and behaviors (e.g., pigs are pink, cows are big and say moo, dogs bark)
Begin to demonstrate an awareness of the needs of living things (e.g., imitating caretaking behaviors with a doll or stuffed animal)
Begin to distinguish between things that are alive and not alive (e.g., interact differently with a real dog and a toy dog)

Make increasingly detailed observations of the characteristics and behaviors of living things (e.g., representations of people begin to include eyes, mouths, and stick arms and legs)
Begin to understand that baby animals often resemble their parents (e.g., match photos of adult animals with their babies)
Begin to recognize diversity and variation in living things (e.g., notice that children in the classroom have different colors of skin, hair, and eyes)
Begin to associate specific animals with the environments in which they get their needs met (e.g., match pictures of familiar animals with their homes)
Begin to express an awareness that living things grow and develop (e.g., express an interest and pride in how they are physically growing and developing new skills)

Group animals based on their characteristics and/or where they can be found (e.g., sort animals into categories such as animals with fur or animals that live in the water)
Identify ways in which specific living things grow and develop over time and what they need to live (e.g., describe a plant’s growth and that it needs water and sun)
Demonstrate an increasing understanding of diversity and variation (e.g., describe or represent similarities and differences among animals’ characteristics, needs, and homes with increasing detail)
Demonstrate an increasing understanding of the difference between living and nonliving things (e.g., describe that living things eat, breathe, move, and play or that they need beds and families)

Describe the characteristics that define living things
Compare, contrast, and/ or categorize different types of plants and animals
Begin to distinguish between wants and needs of living things
Generate ideas about needs that living things and/or all animals share and how their specific needs may be different (e.g., all animals need food, but they eat different foods)
Ask and answer questions about changes in the appearance, behavior, and habitats of living things
Wonder and think about how animals adapt to different weather conditions and where they go when not found in the environment
Make inferences about why specific plants or animals live where they do and how they get their needs met in that place