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3rd grade · Science · Unit 3 of 8

Basic Needs & Life Cycles

What living things need, and the stages of their lives.

What your child practices

Practices the basic needs of organisms (food, water, air, shelter) and the life cycles of plants and animals, including metamorphosis in butterflies and frogs.

Maine Learning Results learning standard: 3-LS1-1 · life cycles of birth, growth, reproduction and death

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Living things need food, water, air and shelter.
  2. Plants make food from sunlight, air and water. Animals eat plants or other animals.
  3. Butterfly: egg, larva (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis), adult.

Example: A caterpillar is which stage of a butterfly? Egg comes first, then the young form that eats leaves. Answer: larva

Basic Needs & Life Cycles in Maine

In the Maine Learning Results, this is unit 3 of 8 in 3rd grade Science, after Pushes, Pulls & Forces and before Speed & Motion.

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.

Source: Maine Department of Education

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Why do plants need roots?

    • To play
    • To take in water and hold the plant
    • To fly

  2. Question 2

    A life cycle is…

    • a kind of food chain
    • the stages a living thing goes through during its life
    • a bicycle path

  3. Question 3

    What stage comes after the caterpillar?

    • pupa (chrysalis)
    • adult hatching
    • egg

  4. Question 4

    A baby frog that lives in water and has a tail is a…

    • chick
    • pup
    • tadpole

  5. Question 5

    A caterpillar is the _____ stage of a butterfly.

    • larva
    • egg
    • adult

  6. Question 6

    A puppy and a butterfly are different because the butterfly…

    • changes form in its life cycle
    • never eats
    • has no life cycle

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