Six clues that something is ALIVE
Read them out loud with a grown-up. Then tap a clue card to see it on the big board.
Living things get bigger and change shape all by themselves.
Five things every living thing needs
A spoon needs nothing. A bean needs all five. Tap the cards to send them to the back.
🦕 Dinosaurs needed these five too — that's why we find their bones near ancient rivers and forests.
Kitchen test: does it need lunch?
Hold up a thing from the counter and ask: “Does this ever get thirsty?” If the answer is no, it's not alive.
Ask: “Could I plant this and get something new?” If yes — you're holding a living thing, even if it looks like a tiny hard pebble.
Non-living things are still useful. Water, bowls, spoons and the warm oven are not alive — but living things need them to stay alive.
Sort Tiny Rex's lunch
Tap a specimen, then tap a bin. Rex will tell you if you're right — and why.
🥚 Tip: a seed is not a dead pebble. It's asleep — like a dino in an egg!
🌿 ALIVE — it's a living thing
It grows. It needs food, water and air. It can make more of itself.
🪨 NOT ALIVE
It never grew, never got hungry, never had babies. Made in a factory — or in a kitchen.
🦕 Detective badge unlocked!
You sorted all 12 specimens. That means you know the difference between alive, not alive, and once alive but not any more. Grown-ups get confused by that last one!
The Tricky Trunk
Four kitchen things that fool even grown-up dinosaurs. Talk about them — there's no single right answer for some.
A dino was alive. A fossil is not.
Same six clues, two different things on the museum shelf.
🦖 A living dinosaur
Six clues: tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
🪨 A dinosaur bone fossil
Six clues: not one tick. That fossil was alive once — a very long time ago.
Kitchen scavenger hunt
Ask a grown-up first, then go and look. Tick each one off. Rex is counting on you.
Start with the fruit bowl — that's where the best living (and once-living) things hide.
The five-minute plan
Read-aloud sentences are built for ages 5–7. Tap any 🗣 button and the page will read it out.
The hook
Show Tiny Rex on the counter. Ask: “Is the spoon hungry? Is the bean hungry?” Two minutes of arguing is the whole point.
Six clues
Scroll section 01. Say each clue out loud with a gesture — arms rising for GROW, a chomp for FOOD, a deep breath for AIR.
Needs deck
Section 02. Ask your child to name one thing from the kitchen for each card.
The dig game
Section 03. Let your child do the tapping. When Rex explains why, pause and ask them to say it back.
Tricky trunk
Section 04. The carrot and the seed are the big ideas: alive, dead, and never alive are three different things.
Send them off
Section 06 — the real hunt with the real plates. Kitchen safe: cold things only, nothing from the oven or knife drawer.