Learning objectives

Knowledge

  • To compare animal life cycles.

Working scientifically

  • To pose questions about life cycles.

Success criteria

Knowledge

  • I can order the stages of different animal life cycles.
  • I can identify similarities between animal life cycles.
  • I can identify differences between animal life cycles.

Working scientifically

  • I can make careful observations about ocean animals and their life cycles.
  • I can pose questions about living things and their life cycles.

National curriculum

Science

Living things and their habitats

Pupils should be taught to:

  • Identify that most living things live in habitats to which they are suited and describe how different habitats provide for the basic needs of different kinds of animals and plants, and how they depend on each other.
  • Identify and name a variety of plants and animals in their habitats, including microhabitats.

Animals, including humans

Pupils should be taught to:

  • Notice that animals, including humans, have offspring which grow into adults.
  • Find out about and describe the basic needs of animals, including humans, for survival (water, food and air).

Working scientifically

Pupils should be taught to use the following practical scientific methods, processes and skills:

  • Asking simple questions and recognising that they can be answered in different ways.
  • Observing closely, using simple equipment.
  • Identifying and classifying.

See National curriculum – Science - Key stages 1 and 2.

Before the lesson

Watch
Watch
Activity: Sorting life cycles (pre-cut, one between three).
Activity: Sorting life cycles: support version (see Adaptive teaching).

Lesson plan

1: Recap and recall

Write the following vocabulary on the board or a flipchart:

  • Offspring.
  • Egg.
  • Life cycle.
  • Live young.
  • Stage.

Play the Pupil video: Animal life cycles from the unit Science, Year 1/2 (A), Animals, including humans: Life cycles and health. Hand out whiteboards and pens and ask the children to create a sentence using at least one written keyword.

Pupil video: Animal life cycles

Take feedback and discuss the children’s use of vocabulary, using the video as a prompt.

2: Attention grabber

Display the Presentation: Ocean young. Ask the children to think about where ocean animals come from.

Presentation: Ocean young

Encourage them to write questions about the ocean young and their life cycles using the keywords as prompts.

Take feedback, prompting them to recall where they should place capital letters and question marks.

Possible questions include:

  • Which animal does that offspring belong to?
  • Do dolphins give birth to live young?
  • Do fish lay eggs?
  • What stage of the life cycle is that?

Click on the images to reveal further information about each creature shown, if required.

3: Main event

Arrange the children into groups of three. Hand out the Activity: Sorting life cycles (pre-cut, one between three) and whiteboard pens for them to write on the desks. Alternatively, provide whiteboards for them to position the pictures and write labels on.

Ask the children to group their cards by animal. Encourage them to organise the pictures into piles and add suitable labels.

Display slide 1 of the Presentation: Life cycles of ocean animals, which matches the Activity: Sorting life cycles.

Presentation: Life cycles of ocean animals

Invite volunteers to drag the images in the presentation to the correct group and allow the class to check their card groupings.

Proceed to slide 2 and ask the children to identify each life cycle’s youngest and oldest stages. Instruct them to add the final two cards to form a life cycle for each animal group, using whiteboard pens to add arrows to complete the diagrams.

Ask volunteers to drag the images in the presentation to form a life cycle to check their work. Repeat this with slides 3 and 4 to sort the other animals’ life cycles.

Decide as a class on a symbol representing similarity (such as a tick, an equals sign or an ‘S’) and difference (such as a cross, a crossed-out equals sign or a ‘D’). Alternatively, hand out whiteboard pens in different colours and allow the children to colour-code the two categories and use a key to explain which is which. Ask the class to discuss similarities and differences between each life cycle within their group. Explain that each pupil is responsible for recording the notes on one of the life cycles.

Photograph the children’s arranged images and labels to record their work.

Take feedback and ask the children to compare identified similarities and differences. These may include:

  • All three begin life hatching from an egg.
  • They all change as they grow.
  • They all start smaller and get bigger.
  • The butterfly lives fully on land, the fish lives entirely in the water and the turtle can live on land and in water. Their habitats can be very different.
  • The butterfly goes through metamorphosis but the other two do not.
  • The baby and adult turtles look most alike compared to the other juveniles and adults.

4: Wrapping up

Display the Presentation: Crab life cycle.

Presentation: Crab life cycle

Ask the children to discuss in pairs which of the three life cycles is most similar to the crab life cycle. Emphasise that there is no single correct answer, but they should be ready to explain their reasoning.

Take feedback. Answers may include:

  • The crab is most like the fish because the eggs, baby salmon and crab larvae look very different from the adults.
  • The crab is most like the fish because they can both live and breathe underwater.
  • The crab is most like the turtle because they can both live on land and in the water.
  • The crab is most like the turtle because they both have hard shells as adults.
  • The crab is most like the butterfly because both life cycles involve changes in shape: the young look very different from the adults.

Ask the children if they have any further questions they would need to find out to help them be more sure of their answers.

Note: ask the children to bring clean, transparent plastic drink bottles, preferably two-litre in size, for Lesson 3: Investigating ocean litter.

Adaptive teaching

Pupils needing extra support

Should use the Activity: Sorting life cycles: support version to sort and compare the butterfly and fish life cycles; could stick a copy of the Activity: Sorting life cycles into their book and annotate or circle similarities directly; could use different coloured highlighters to mark the similarities and differences.

Pupils working at greater depth

Could reflect on their knowledge of the different animal groups when comparing life cycles if they have completed the unit Science, Y1/2 (B), Animals, including humans: Comparing animals; should pose new questions about ocean life cycles (considering capital letters and question marks) and explain how their questions have changed from the start of the lesson.

Assessing progress and understanding

Pupils with secure understanding indicated by: ordering the stages of a butterfly and ocean animal’s life cycle; identifying similarities and differences; posing questions about different ocean animals using observations and scientific knowledge.

Pupils working at greater depth indicated by: posing further questions and explaining why or how these have changed through the lesson; using correct grammar when posing written questions.

Vocabulary definitions

  • compare

    Finding out how things are different or similar.

  • depend

    To need the help of something else to survive.

  • difference

    Not the same.

  • egg

    Laid by different types of animals to produce offspring.

  • life cycle

    The stages an animal goes through to become an adult.

  • live young

    Animals that are produced without an egg.

  • offspring

    The young born to a living thing.

  • similarity

    Nearly the same.

Our team comprises experienced classroom teachers who love the foundation subjects
Find out more
Kapow logo

Maintained by: Kapow Primary team

_
For copyright reasons, you may not screenshot this page.
Press esc to exit
close popup

Are you sure you want to download this lesson plan?

Downloading may not be your best option. Be sure you are looking at the most up-to-date version by always viewing your resources online.

Bookmark or save the link to this lesson so you can find it quickly! Do you want to continue?