Over 40 000 visits to my blog- Amazing! Living things have a Life Cycle.

As part of our Inquiry into Living and Non Living, the children have been introduced to life cycles. We have looked deeply into the life cycles of butterflies, and frogs. The children are very familiar with butterflies, so we decided to look at this life cycle first. As a grade we read a big book about butterflies, and then discussed the concept of a life cycle. This was a very teacher modelled introduction to life cycles. The children drew the life cycle of a butterfly, and some examples are presented in this post.

Talking about life cycles has started many discussions among the children. The concept of living is established, and their understanding of non-living is developing. They are now starting to look at non living with scientific understanding. Having many appropriate books for this level about frogs, it seemed logical that we look at the life cycle of this creature.

The children were able to look at the books, and I read a selection to the grade. We discussed frogs in general, and then I asked them to draw their own frog life cycle diagram. This was student directed and not teacher modelled.

Having drawn their own frog life cycle, based on discussion and books read, I decided to give them pictures of the different stages of a frog’s life cycle and matching text. These were not in order. The children had to cut, order and match the text to each stage. This activity was designed as a listening comprehension activity.

The children really enjoyed this activity, and are very proud of their work. It’s interesting to note that they are starting to compare the life cycles of creatures to a human’s life cycle. They have also concluded that all living things have a life cycle. This link has developed naturally ‘out of their study’. The children have been very productive and engaged in this Inquiry.

Cheers Nina

NB: Over 40 000 visits to my blog…that’s incredible. It still amazes me how many people visit this space, and the comments and emails I receive. Once again, thanks for visiting! And please, keep sharing your thoughts and ideas with me.