Needs & Characteristics of Living Things - PowerPoint & Handouts. Students learn about the four things needed for life - water, food, shelter, and homeostasis. Then, they complete a folding manipulative great for interactive notebooks about the EIGHT characteristics that all living things possess: organization, heredity, maintain homeostasis, growth and development, metabolism, respond to stimuli, reproduction, and adaptation through evolution. Guiding PowerPoint, Notes and Manipulative