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All animals grow and change. The way an animal grows from young to grown-up, and then has young of its own, is called its life cycle.

A butterfly starts as a tiny egg on a leaf. A caterpillar hatches out and eats and eats and grows and grows.

Then the caterpillar makes a chrysalis. Inside, its body changes completely. After a few weeks a butterfly comes out!

A frog starts as an egg in jelly in a pond: lots of eggs together are called frogspawn. A tadpole hatches out. It lives in water and has a long tail.

Experiment: Make a life cycle wheel

1. Use the pencil and ruler to divide one plate into four parts, like a pizza.
2. Draw the four stages of a butterfly, one in each part, in order: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly.
3. Cut a window out of the second plate, the size of one part (ask for help).
4. Put the window plate on top and push the split pin through the middle of both plates (an adult helps).
5. Turn the top plate. Say each stage as it appears. What comes after the butterfly? It lays eggs, and the cycle starts again!

Stage	What it looks like	What it does
Egg
Caterpillar
Chrysalis
Butterfly

Questions

1. Draw the life cycle of a frog in a circle: frogspawn, tadpole, froglet, frog.

   🍎

2. What comes out of a chrysalis?

   a butterfly / a frog

3. Write or draw one way a tadpole changes as it grows.

Sources for every fact on this sheet: echoesof.science/school/animal-life-cycles/sources/

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