Living things and habitats · Year 4
Everything can be sorted as living, dead (once alive) or never alive. Living things move, respire, sense, grow, reproduce, get rid of waste and need food. A habitat is the natural home of a living thing: it gives it food, water and shelter. Habitats change, and the living things in them must cope or move.
Key facts
- The seven life processes (MRS GREN): Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion and Nutrition.
- Living: alive now (a dog, a tree). Dead: was once alive (a fallen leaf, a wooden table). Never alive: has never been alive (a rock, glass, a metal spoon).
- A habitat gives living things food, water, shelter and a safe place to raise their young. A microhabitat is a very small habitat, like under a log or a stone.
- Habitats include ponds, woodland, deserts, the seashore, oceans, rainforests and the polar regions.
- Animals have life cycles: a frog goes frogspawn → tadpole → froglet → frog; a butterfly goes egg → caterpillar → chrysalis → butterfly.
- Environments change with the seasons, floods and droughts, and because of people (building, cutting down forests, pollution). Nature reserves, ponds and new trees help living things.