3rd grade · Science · Unit 5 of 12
Life Cycles
Butterflies, frogs and salmon
What your child practices
Life cycles of butterflies, frogs and BC salmon, and how babies compare with their parents.
Alabama Course of Study content standard: 3.5 · comparing the life cycles of plants and animals: birth, growth, reproduction and death
How we explain it
Children can open this short lesson before they practice.
- A life cycle is the stages a living thing goes through, again and again.
- Butterfly: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly.
- Bean plant: seed, sprout, growing plant, flowers and new seeds.
Example: What comes right after the caterpillar in a butterfly's life cycle? The caterpillar makes a hard case and changes inside it. Answer: chrysalis
Life Cycles in Alabama
In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 5 of 12 in 3rd grade Science, after Magnet Inventions and before Animal Life Cycles.
Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.
Sample questions
A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.
Question 1
Put the butterfly's life cycle in order.
- 🐛caterpillar
- 🥚egg
- chrysalis
- 🦋butterfly
egg → caterpillar → chrysalis → butterfly
Hint: It starts as a tiny egg on a leaf. A caterpillar hatches, makes a chrysalis, then comes out as a butterfly.
Question 2
Put the chicken's life cycle in order.
- 🐥chick
- 🥚egg
- young chicken with feathers
- 🐔adult hen
egg → chick → young chicken with feathers → adult hen
Hint: A chick hatches from an egg, grows feathers, and becomes a hen or rooster.
Question 3
Where do adult salmon go to lay their eggs?
🐟- 🌲up a tall tree
- 🏞️back to the river where they hatched
- 🏜️into a desert
🏞️ back to the river where they hatched
Hint: Salmon swim from the ocean back up the river where they were born. Salmon have been important to First Peoples in BC for thousands of years.
Question 4
What do baby birds need from their parents?
- 🚲a bicycle
- 💻a computer
- 🪺food and a safe nest
🪺 food and a safe nest
Hint: Parents feed and protect their young until they can fly and find their own food.
Question 5
Which pair is a parent and its baby?
- 🐔hen and chick
- 🐄cow and chick
- 🐎horse and tadpole
🐔 hen and chick
Hint: A chick hatches from a hen's egg.
Question 6
A parent and its baby usually…
- 👥look exactly the same
- 🙅never look alike
- 👨👧look alike in some ways
👨👧 look alike in some ways
Hint: Babies often share traits with their parents, like fur color or ear shape.