Year 3 Science – Term 1 (WA Curriculum): Living and Non-Living Things

What this unit covers

In Term 1, Year 3 Science in the WA Curriculum centres on the unit “Living and Non-Living Things”.

Students explore how to distinguish living things from non-living and once-living things, and learn to group organisms by their characteristics using classification systems.

Lesson sequence (8 lessons)

The unit breaks down into the following lesson-by-lesson sequence — each title below is a teachable lesson, in order:

1. Discovering What Makes Something Alive Using MRS GREN
2. Sorting Living, Non-Living and Once-Living Things
3. Exploring Vertebrate Animals and Their Backbones
4. Classifying Fish, Amphibians and Reptiles
5. Identifying Birds and Mammals by Their Features
6. Investigating Invertebrates: Insects, Spiders and Snails
7. Using a Simple Key to Sort Animals
8. Learning How Aboriginal Peoples Group Living Things

Curriculum codes in this unit

Content codes:

Reading the codes: WA codes (the ones starting with WA) pack the year level, learning area, strand and content number into one string, while the national Australian Curriculum v9 uses a different anatomy that starts with AC9 — same content family, different labels. Our complete WA Curriculum guide decodes both, character by character.

Planning notes for Term 1

WA terms run roughly 9–11 weeks, and in 2026 Term 1 runs from Monday 2 February to Thursday 2 April — 9 weeks for WA public schools. With 8 lessons in this unit, that leaves breathing room for assessment, moderation and the weeks that disappear to carnivals, camps and public holidays — plan the assessable work to land two to three weeks before the end of term rather than in the final week.