NSW Early Stage 1 Science & Technology: Living Things

NSW Early Stage 1 Science: Teaching Living Things in Kindergarten

For Kindergarten teachers in a NSW primary school, the Living Things unit is often the first formal Science & Technology teaching young students experience — and one of the most engaging units in the whole Foundation year. Sitting in the Living World strand of the NSW Science & Technology K-6 Syllabus, this unit lets five-year-olds use the things they already love noticing — bugs in the playground, the class fish, the tree near the school gate, the new puppy at home — as the starting point for genuine scientific observation.

This guide is for Foundation (Early Stage 1) teachers planning the Living Things unit fresh, returning to Kindergarten after teaching older grades, or hunting for ready-made teacher resources that align with the NSW K-6 Science syllabus and the Term 1 placement most published Scope and Sequences recommend.

What the Living Things unit covers

The NSW Science & Technology K-6 Syllabus places Living Things at Early Stage 1 in the Living World strand. Across the unit, Kindergarten students are expected to:

• Identify external features of living things — leaves, stems, eyes, ears, fur, feathers, scales — and use those features to group plants and animals.
• Distinguish living, non-living, and once-living things — using simple observable criteria (does it move on its own, does it grow, does it need food and water).
• Identify what living things need to grow and stay alive — water, food, air, shelter, sunlight (for plants), and care from people (for some animals).
• Recognise that living things change as they grow — caterpillar to butterfly, seedling to tree, baby to child to adult.
• Use scientific tools and methods at a Foundation level — magnifying glasses, simple observation drawings, sorting and classifying with picture cards.

The unit deliberately ties in everyday classroom routines that already happen in Foundation — looking after a class plant, watching seeds sprout in a window-sill cup, observing a bug-watch tank, going on a schoolyard plant or animal hunt.

How the unit fits the NSW Science & Technology K-6 Syllabus

The NSW K-6 Science syllabus organises content by strand (Living World, Material World, Physical World, Earth and Space) and by Working Scientifically and Working Technologically processes that run through every unit. At Early Stage 1, the Working Scientifically processes that anchor the Living Things unit are:

• Observing — looking carefully at features and changes over time.
• Questioning — asking simple wonderings about plants, animals, and natural objects.
• Predicting and testing — "what do you think will happen if...?" with very short, concrete experiments.
• Communicating — drawing, labelling, and orally describing what they see.

The content lays the foundation for Stage 1 (Years 1-2) Living World work on life cycles and external features in greater depth, and for Stage 2 and Stage 3 work on classification, ecosystems, and adaptations. For Stage 1-3 design and technology context that connects across the K-6 syllabus, see our NSW science and design process guide.

A practical Term 1 teaching sequence

Most NSW Kindergarten teachers run the Living Things unit across six to eight weeks in Term 1, integrating it with English (descriptive vocabulary, observation drawings, recount writing about a nature walk) and Creative Arts (drawing plants and animals from observation). A workable sequence:

1. What is alive? (week 1) — sorting picture cards into living and non-living. Open the unit with a walk around the school grounds and ask students to point out things that are alive and things that are not.
2. Looking closely at plants (weeks 2-3) — identify external features (root, stem, leaf, flower, fruit), plant a seed in a window-sill cup and start a simple observation diary, learn that plants need water and sunlight.
3. Looking closely at animals (weeks 3-5) — group animals by features (legs, wings, fur, scales), explore Australian native animals, learn what animals need to live, and look at how baby animals look different from their parents. Our Australian animals teacher guide collects classroom-ready resources for this segment.
4. Living things change (weeks 5-6) — life-cycle stories (butterfly, frog, chicken, sunflower) with simple sequencing tasks. A classroom egg-hatching or caterpillar-to-butterfly observation project anchors this perfectly if your school allows it.
5. Caring for living things (weeks 6-7) — what plants and animals need, how we look after them, simple rules for being safe and respectful around animals at home, school, and in the bush.
6. Sharing learning (week 7-8) — students produce a simple finished artefact — a class "Living Things" book, a labelled plant or animal poster, or a short presentation to another class.

Working Scientifically routines that fit Foundation

Kindergarten students are perfectly capable of doing real science at age five — provided the routines are short, concrete, and visual. Practical Foundation routines to embed across the unit:

• Observation drawings — students draw what they see, not what they imagine. Three to five minutes is plenty at this age.
• Wonder walls — a class wall where students post questions they have about plants, animals, or the schoolyard. Revisit weekly.
• Sort-and-classify mats — picture cards of plants, animals, and non-living things sorted into hoops or tray frames.
• Predict-observe routines — "what do you think will happen to the seed in the cup with no water?" — followed by a concrete observation a few days later.

For more general Foundation science teaching ideas, see our science activities guide. The carousels below pull together teacher-created Early Stage 1 Living Things resources — many bundle living/non-living sorting cards, plant labelling sheets, life-cycle posters, observation diaries, and Australian animal fact pages into single classroom-ready packages.