DRAMATIC LIVING AND NON-LIVING
Learning Description
Students explore the differences between living organisms and nonliving objects through the eyes of the nursery rhyme, “Hey Diddle Diddle”. After bringing these familiar characters to life, the students discuss the concepts of living organisms and nonliving objects. Students then act out pictures of living organisms and nonliving objects for their classmates to classify, infusing fun and movement into the classroom.
Learning Targets
"I Can" Statements
“I Can…”
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I can accurately portray characteristics of living organisms and nonliving objects using my body and voice.
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I can accurately recognize and identify physical attributes of living organisms and nonliving objects.
Essential Questions
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How can theatre techniques be used to portray living organisms and nonliving objects?
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What is the difference between living organisms and nonliving objects?
Georgia Standards
Curriculum Standards
Kindergarten:
SKL1. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about how organisms (alive and not alive) and non-living objects are grouped. a. Construct an explanation based on observations to recognize the differences between organisms and nonliving objects. b. Develop a model to represent how a set of organisms and nonliving objects are sorted into groups based on their attributes.
Arts Standards
Kindergarten:
TAK.PR.1 Act by communicating and sustaining roles in formal and informal environments.
South Carolina Standards
Curriculum Standards
Kindergarten:
K-LS1-1. Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.
Arts Standards
Anchor Standard 3: I can act in improvised scenes and written scripts.
Anchor Standard 8: I can relate theatre to other content areas, arts disciplines, and careers.
Key Vocabulary
Content Vocabulary
- Living - Includes those things that are alive or have ever been alive
- Nonliving - Includes things are not alive, nor have they ever been
Arts Vocabulary
- Theater - Dramatic literature or its performance; drama
- Character - A person, an animal or other figure assuming human qualities, in a story
- Voice – An actor’s tool, which we shape and change to portray the way a character speaks or sounds
- Body – An actor’s tool, which we shape and change to portray the way a character looks, walks, or moves
- Improvisation - A creation that is spoken or written without prior preparation
Materials
- Photo pages of living organisms and nonliving objects
- Frog video and sound clip
- Props such as a rock, spoon, etc.
- Object to use as a “magic wand”
- Anchor chart paper with columns for living and nonliving objects
Instructional Design
Opening/Activating Strategy
Classroom Tips: Classroom set-up will be key for this lesson! Set up chairs and tables in a circular format, to maximize students’ engagement and ability to see their peers during the activity and performance.
- Start with a general physical warm-up to get the students' bodies ready. Use exercises such as:
- Stretching: Stretch all major muscle groups.
- Shaking Out Limbs: Shake out arms, legs, and the whole body to release tension.
- Energy Passes: Stand in a circle and pass a clap or a simple motion around to build group focus and energy.
- Explain that students will explore different characters by changing their walk and physicality. Use simple prompts to get students thinking about different ways to walk and move. Call out various types of characters and ask students to walk around the space embodying those characters. Examples include:
- A bird searching for a worm to eat
- A tree blowing in the wind
- A hungry lion
- A happy dog
Work Session
“HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE” ALIVE
- Recite “Hey Diddle Diddle” nursery rhyme. Ask students to say it with you two times.
- Ask seven students to come up to the front of the room to each play one of the characters in the rhyme: Cat, fiddle, cow, moon, dog, dish or spoon.
- Ask the actors to give their character a movement, then have them act it out while everyone else recites “Hey Diddle Diddle”.
- Ask students if this story is fiction or non-fiction.
- Remind students that fiction is an entertaining, make-believe story that is not true, while non-fiction is true information that gives you fact to explain something.
- “Hey Diddle Diddle” is fiction because it is a make-believe story.
- We know that plates and spoons don’t really run, right?
LIVING/NONLIVING REVIEW
- Ask students, “What do you need to be healthy and grow?”. Write answers on the board.
- Make sure that the words air, food, and water are mentioned, and circle those words.
- Show students a rock and ask, “What do rocks need in order to grow and be healthy?”.
- Students should respond that the rock does not need air, food, and water because it does not grow.
- Emphasize that living things grow and eat, can move on their own, and need air, food and water (write these on the board).
- Explain to students that things that need air, food, and water are called living organisms.
- Add movements:
- Air – open fingers and hands wiggling in front of body with a wind sound,
- Food – hands holding an imaginary hamburger and mouth eating it with an eating sound
- Water – pinky up and thumb down with other fingers bent like you are drinking in front of your mouth and make a drinking sound
- Repeat the movements and explanation with students.
- Discuss differences between living organisms and nonliving objects with students: Things that need air, food, and water are called living organisms, while things that do not need air, food, and water are called nonliving objects.
- Discuss some examples of each.
- Is a frog living or nonliving?
- Show students a frog with a sound and movement.
- Have students repeat the sound and movement of the frog.
- Ask students if they know what kind of animal a frog is (mammal, fish, reptile or an amphibian)? A frog is an amphibian.
- Does a frog grow? (let me see you grow, frogs)
- Does a frog need food? What kind? (let me see you eat a fly, frogs)
- Does a frog move on its own? (let me see you move, frogs)
- Does a frog need air? (let me see you breathe air, frogs)
- Does a frog need water? Do they drink water? No. They have special skin that absorbs the water to help hydrate them. So they need water to live but they don’t drink it. (let me see you jump in the water to soak it through your skin, frogs)
- Is a frog living or nonliving?
- Is a rock living or nonliving? Let’s all sit like a rock.
- Does a rock move?
- Does a rock grow?
- Does a rock eat?
- Can a rock move on its own?
- Does a rock need air, food or water?
- Is a rock living or nonliving?
- Is a frog living or nonliving?
LIVING AND NONLIVING CHART
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- Say to students, “Let’s investigate and make a chart to list our findings. We will have a column for living organisms and a column for nonliving objects”.
- Ask students if there are things in “Hey Diddle Diddle” that do not need air, food, and water. Students should respond with a plate, spoon, moon and fiddle. Therefore, these things are nonliving.
- Ask students if there are things in the rhyme that need air, food and water. Students should respond with a cat, cow and dog. Therefore, these are living organisms.
- Note: Be aware that some students may want to identify the dish, spoon, moon, and fiddle as alive because in nursery rhymes they do take on human characteristics. Real objects such as a dish and a spoon may help to clarify this misconception.
- Write the appropriate objects under the correct columns of the chart.
- Now, ask students to look around the classroom and raise their hands to identify objects that they see. Decide as a class if the objects are living or nonliving. Ask students how they know if it’s living or nonliving.
- Write the objects that students list in the correct column on the chart.
MAGIC WAND
- Hold up your magic wand. Ask students if anyone knows what the object is. Tell students that it’s a magic wand!
- Ask students to play a game called “Magic Wand''. Tell students that in this game, they will see if the wand can change something that’s living into a nonliving thing.
- Find one object in this room that’s living (a person). See if the wand can change it into a nonliving thing. Nope! It won’t work.
- Now tell students that you will see if the wand will change something that is nonliving into a living thing. Ask if someone will show you a nonliving thing in the room (trashcan). Let’s see if this magic wand will change it to living. Nope! Won’t work. It’s impossible to do!
- Ask students why we can’t change the objects that were living to nonliving and the nonliving thing to living.
LIVING AND NONLIVING ACTION
- Tell students that in this next game, you will call out an animal or object and they should use their bodies and voices to make a sound to become the animal or object.
- Call out “Spider”. Ask students to become spiders, and then ask students whether a spider is living or nonliving. Ask students how they know.
- Call out the following and repeat the process: Frog, rock, butterfly, moon, dog, computer.
- Now, pass out pictures of organisms and objects to students, such as a snail, tree, spider, fish, human, flower, bird, cat, plant, seed, dead plant, snake, alligator, brown bear, deer, dog, frog, tortoise, turtle and rock, hat, cup, pencil, lego, computer, book, car, bike, clock, backpack, book, ring, house.
- On the count of three, ask students to use their bodies and voices to become what is in their picture.
- Ask students to move to the right side of the room if they are a living organism.
- If the student is a nonliving object, ask them to move to the left side of the room.
- Have students showing living organisms each demo their organism and ask the others to guess their identity.
- Have students showing nonliving objects each demo their object and ask the others to guess their identity.
Closing Reflection
- Close the lesson by saying the rhyme again as a class and acting out the characters.
- Ask students to tell you which things are living and which are not living and why.
Assessments
Formative
Teachers will assess students’ understanding of the content throughout the lesson by observing students’ participation in the activator, discussion of living versus nonliving things, and use of bodies and voices to demonstrate living versus nonliving things.
Summative
CHECKLIST
- Students can accurately portray characteristics of living organisms and nonliving objects using their bodies and voices.
- Students can accurately recognize and identify physical attributes of living organisms and nonliving objects.
DIFFERENTIATION
Acceleration:
Remediation: Provide students with cut out images of living organisms and nonliving objects. Have students sort and glue each item into two categories on chart paper–living and nonliving. This can be done as a whole class or students can work with a partner. |
*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.
Ideas contributed by: Susie Spear Purcell. Updated by Katy Betts.
Revised and copyright: July 2024 @ ArtsNOW