The topic of living things is ideal for exploring the ideas of children in the early years of school. Preschool and primary school teachers are reasonably confident with the subject matter and all children will have had some life experiences that contribute to their prior knowledge. For this reason, the question 'Is it alive?' is one that Foundation-year students will be ready to engage with. The diversity of living things and non-living artefacts that children have encountered in their everyday lives provides a rich foundation for discussion. Engaging children in talking about familiar topics is a good way to support emergent science ideas and the development of scientific thinking and inquiry skills. This paper presents a sequence of learning tasks comprising about one hour of lesson time from a unit of work for Foundation-year students. Emphasis is placed on supporting children to develop the science inquiry skill of communicating with a focus on early argumentation. Talk with fellow students and adult teachers supports children expressing their ideas and observations with reasons and evidence, a practice central to science communication (Russell & McGuigan, 2016). The learning experiences featured occurred early in Term 1 of the school year in two kindergarten classes. Both groups of children were involved in learning about living things and their survival needs. In this all-girls school, a science specialist (author) taught each class collaboratively with their classroom teacher.