What do you think?
Rate this book
Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science, Stage 1
(What's Alive? (Let's Read-&-find-out Science)) [By: Zoehfeld, Kathleen Weidner] [Feb, 1996]
How to tell the difference between living and nonliving things--an essential first skill in scientific sorting and classifying--is explored with hands-on activities and colorful diagrams.
Paperback
First published August 18, 1995
12 people are currently reading
274 people want to read
About the author
Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
182 books26 followersKathleen Weidner Zoehfeld is the award-winning author of more than sixty books for children, including DINOSAUR TRACKS, "a great choice for even the most discriminating dinophiles" (School Library Journal); DID DINOSAURS HAVE FEATHERS?, a Children's Book of the Month Club selection, described as "fascinating" by Kirkus Reviews; and DINOSAURS BIG AND SMALL, a 2003 Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Best Book Award winner.
When she's not reading, researching, writing, or editing, Kathleen loves to spend her free time exploring, doing fieldwork, and preparing fossils for her local natural history museums.
When she's not reading, researching, writing, or editing, Kathleen loves to spend her free time exploring, doing fieldwork, and preparing fossils for her local natural history museums.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
March 8, 2013
Wonderfully comprehensive book about discovering what it means for something to be alive. A great introduction into our "living things" lesson, and fairy easy reading, that doesn't get too long or tedious. My 5 yr old loved it!
May 7, 2021
Title (italicize): What’s Alive?
Author: Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
Illustrator (if separate from author): Nadine Bernard Westcott
Genre: Children’s book, Non fiction
Theme(s): Living and nonliving things, Life science, teaching
Opening line/sentence (type directly from text): “Are you like a cat?
You don’t look like a cat.”
Brief Book Summary (2-3 sentences in your own words): This children book focuses on living and nonliving things by providing the definition of what makes something a living thing and what makes something non living. This book also provides many examples for each term so preschoolers can differentiate the two.
Response to Two Professional Reviews (3-4 sentences in your own words): Both Whitney Leanhart and Sarah agree that this book teaches not only about living things but nonliving things as well. Also, they talk about how this book gives more knowledge on how preschoolers can differentiate the two which I agree with. I also like how the author encourages students to be able to find examples of each one on their own.
Tell Me Framework (4 sentences in your own words):
Like(s): The book describes what living things need to survive, describes the difference between living and nonliving things and what non living things need that is vital to its function such as trees or plants. I also like towards the end of the book, the author gave an insightful suggestion to the readers when she says to sort pictures by living and non living things. I like this idea because it will help to understand what the reader learned and if they actually grasp living and nonliving concepts.
Dislike(s): I have nothing I dislike about this book.
Patterns(s): Opening line on each page is a question about living things
Puzzle(s): I was not confused about anything
Consideration of Instructional Application (3-4 sentences in your own words): I would use this book in the preschool by having students tell me the difference of a nonliving thing from a living thing in their own words. Also, to provide me with a few examples. For homework, I will assign students a worksheet where there will be many pictures and they will tell me whether it's a living thing or non living thing and explain why.
Author: Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
Illustrator (if separate from author): Nadine Bernard Westcott
Genre: Children’s book, Non fiction
Theme(s): Living and nonliving things, Life science, teaching
Opening line/sentence (type directly from text): “Are you like a cat?
You don’t look like a cat.”
Brief Book Summary (2-3 sentences in your own words): This children book focuses on living and nonliving things by providing the definition of what makes something a living thing and what makes something non living. This book also provides many examples for each term so preschoolers can differentiate the two.
Response to Two Professional Reviews (3-4 sentences in your own words): Both Whitney Leanhart and Sarah agree that this book teaches not only about living things but nonliving things as well. Also, they talk about how this book gives more knowledge on how preschoolers can differentiate the two which I agree with. I also like how the author encourages students to be able to find examples of each one on their own.
Tell Me Framework (4 sentences in your own words):
Like(s): The book describes what living things need to survive, describes the difference between living and nonliving things and what non living things need that is vital to its function such as trees or plants. I also like towards the end of the book, the author gave an insightful suggestion to the readers when she says to sort pictures by living and non living things. I like this idea because it will help to understand what the reader learned and if they actually grasp living and nonliving concepts.
Dislike(s): I have nothing I dislike about this book.
Patterns(s): Opening line on each page is a question about living things
Puzzle(s): I was not confused about anything
Consideration of Instructional Application (3-4 sentences in your own words): I would use this book in the preschool by having students tell me the difference of a nonliving thing from a living thing in their own words. Also, to provide me with a few examples. For homework, I will assign students a worksheet where there will be many pictures and they will tell me whether it's a living thing or non living thing and explain why.
October 1, 2018
Summary: Are you like a cat? You don't look like a cat. But you and a cat have something in common: You are both alive. People and plants and animals are all alive, but is a doll alive? Or your tricycle? How can you tell? Read and find out what makes something alive, and what all living things need to stay healthy.
Evaluation: I thought that this was a great book and although it had a science aspect to it, it was an enjoyable book to read and was interesting to read. It had pictures that went along well with what the book was saying and the reader would be able to relate the book to their personal life.
Teaching Idea: I thought that this would be a great book to read for science and to help explain to the students what the differences are between living and nonliving things.
Evaluation: I thought that this was a great book and although it had a science aspect to it, it was an enjoyable book to read and was interesting to read. It had pictures that went along well with what the book was saying and the reader would be able to relate the book to their personal life.
Teaching Idea: I thought that this would be a great book to read for science and to help explain to the students what the differences are between living and nonliving things.
December 8, 2019
The book "What's Alive?" by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld asks readers to identify which objects and characters mentioned are living or non-living, and describes the differences among these things. The author uses items that will peak the interest of young readers such as tricycles, dolls, and puppies. This book is a fun story that will have students begin to think about things around them that are living or non-living. I would use this text to address the following standard: SKL1: Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about how organisms (alive and not alive) and non-living objects are grouped. I would ask students to collect items from the classroom and the playground and determine if they were living or non-living.
January 13, 2019
A great book for younger scientists. It explains some of the basic requirements for something to be counted as living such as needing food, water, and air, and moving and growing. The author also touches on the fact that all living things must die at some point so this is a great book to use when starting a conversation about death with a young person. The art was super cute and everything was explained well.
Read
December 12, 2021This was a great resource to use in my classroom to help students with our living and non-living unit. This book helped students understand and comprehend things that are alive and things that are not alive. It allowed my students to be able to connect and relate to the different elements of the book.
October 8, 2018
I would read this book in a classroom with kids around the age of 6 and under. What's Alive gives many examples of how to identify what is living or non-living. This tool gives students more knowledge on how to identify between the two.
September 24, 2017
I enjoyed this book because I like stuff that are alive. I also enjoyed this book because I like paintings. There were paintings inside the book of things that were alive and not alive.
March 11, 2019
Teaches kids about life and death, alive and nonliving items while encouraging them to look for such items on their own.
February 5, 2021
Good sorting and yes/no questions for two year old.
August 6, 2021
A simple picture book to explain the criteria to test if something is alive or not. Biology 101 for preschoolers.
January 2, 2022
I love it!
January 20, 2023
Whoa a science book that goes into this much detail on being alive for kids (it even includes a discussion on death).
June 10, 2016
I give this book 3.5 Stars.
It's one of the better non-fiction books I've read. There's a story-like flow, with a beginning, choppy middle, and ending. I took away 1.5 stars for the choppy ending, the story was really flowing smoothly until that random 3-4 pages that interrupted the story. I just felt like it could have been done better.
The book falls under the science category, which teaches non-living versus living things. Although, says for ages 4-8, which is wide range, I would only read this to an advance 4 year old, who had high comprehension skills and have some real-items from the book to directly try out for yourself.
This would be a great story to read to introduce a science unit on living versus non-living. You can do exactly as the story says, have kids walk around their house or the school, or a park and draw various items, then regroup and categorize non-living versus living items.
I like how this book explained what living things need and a few qualities of a living thing, such as growing. This book also did the same for non-living things. Make sure to emphasize those differences in order for children to independently identify living versus non-living things.
It's one of the better non-fiction books I've read. There's a story-like flow, with a beginning, choppy middle, and ending. I took away 1.5 stars for the choppy ending, the story was really flowing smoothly until that random 3-4 pages that interrupted the story. I just felt like it could have been done better.
The book falls under the science category, which teaches non-living versus living things. Although, says for ages 4-8, which is wide range, I would only read this to an advance 4 year old, who had high comprehension skills and have some real-items from the book to directly try out for yourself.
This would be a great story to read to introduce a science unit on living versus non-living. You can do exactly as the story says, have kids walk around their house or the school, or a park and draw various items, then regroup and categorize non-living versus living items.
I like how this book explained what living things need and a few qualities of a living thing, such as growing. This book also did the same for non-living things. Make sure to emphasize those differences in order for children to independently identify living versus non-living things.
February 1, 2012
This is a book I would use as a reference to help explain to children 4 - 5 years of age, science concepts that they can observe and explore. This book helps a child learn the difference between living and non-living things. It helps explain what makes a living thing living and what it needs to live and what makes something non-living. It also classifies living things as humans, animals and plants and explains the differences with all of them. It shares great examples of common things child would find inside or outside of things from these two categories.
CREATIVE EXPERIENCE: The children can create a collection in two shoe boxes: one living and the other non-living items that they can find both inside and outside the classroom. They can bring things that they have or find from home as well to add to their collection. I can also add to this assignment, if it is a rainy day, pictures that find in some old magazines of things that are living and non-living. I would post up these two categories on a wall, and they cut up pictures from the magazines and tape the pictures under the correct category.
CREATIVE EXPERIENCE: The children can create a collection in two shoe boxes: one living and the other non-living items that they can find both inside and outside the classroom. They can bring things that they have or find from home as well to add to their collection. I can also add to this assignment, if it is a rainy day, pictures that find in some old magazines of things that are living and non-living. I would post up these two categories on a wall, and they cut up pictures from the magazines and tape the pictures under the correct category.
September 3, 2016
This book describes what it means to be a living thing and a non-living thing. Trees, birds, cats, humans, flowers are all given as examples of living things, and characteristics of these things is mentioned. Namely, they need air, water, and food in order to survive. A rock is given as an example of a non-living thing. There is also a suggestion at the end of the book for a good activity in which students could participate.
I thought this book was okay, but that it could have been better. They also show a dead tree and a dead bird near the end, and I'm not sure that this would be appropriate for some students. They never really tell whether these dead objects would be considered living or non-living.
You could use this book when discussing the basic needs of plants and animals. Classifying living and non-living things could be introduced with the book.
I thought this book was okay, but that it could have been better. They also show a dead tree and a dead bird near the end, and I'm not sure that this would be appropriate for some students. They never really tell whether these dead objects would be considered living or non-living.
You could use this book when discussing the basic needs of plants and animals. Classifying living and non-living things could be introduced with the book.
October 16, 2012
I think this one decently taught the concept of "What is Alive." In a nutshell, this book teaches that if something needs food, water, and air, it is alive. Madelyn caught on quickly and we enjoyed the suggested exercise of going outside and finding things that were alive or not alive. Instead of making drawings of what we found, Madelyn took pictures with my camera. Fun!
February 25, 2014
Love, love, love this book! If you get a request for a living/non-living lesson, this is the book to read. Straightforward explanation and repetition for the characteristics of living and non-living things perfect for PK to grade 3. Short, sensitive treatment of death. Read it almost every year!
April 6, 2010
This book is told in a story format. It contains lots of information which is easy for students to understand. Students also can easily relate to the events in the story and can make connections with both the pictures and the text.
Read
June 18, 2013Experiences with the Web of Life Pieces of Earth
February 12, 2014
This book could be used for classifying living and non living things
August 15, 2016
Great pictures! Very educational!
Read
February 22, 2015All by herself!
Read
April 18, 2017read aloud
Read
October 20, 2017Read this as part of the Living & Nonliving Things science lesson.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews