Where the line blurs
The white thread-like things in a heap of rotting refuse are the vegetative part of a fungus — and what later becomes a mushroom is the structure formed for its sexual reproduction.
Lichen on a coconut trunk, the various ferns growing down a wall, orchids, the white mealy bugs on a chilli plant in the yard, the very fine white eggs on a young kathurumurunga leaf — examine these and living and non-living will be perfectly clear to you.
But not always
A living thing that looks non-living
Bacterial cells can be dried into a plain powder. Yeast, a fungus used in making bread, is also on sale as a dry powder. At a glance they are powders, not organisms.
A non-living thing that looks alive
Soil particles coming together to form rock, and a crystal getting larger, can be seen as "growth". The wave motion produced by ripples on a reservoir can be seen as "movement".
Assignment 8.5
Examine how the "growth" and "movement" of those non-living objects differ from the same things in living organisms.
Where the difference lies
A crystal gets larger by material being added from outside; an organism grows from within. A ripple moves because an outside force pushes it; an organism moves of its own accord. What separates them is not whether the characteristic appears but how it comes about.