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3rd grade · Science · Unit 5 of 12

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.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 3.13(B) · comparing the life cycles of plants and animals

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 Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 5 of 12 in 3rd grade Science, after How Plants Grow & Change and before Surviving in a Habitat.

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: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

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

    Which animal changes shape completely as it grows (metamorphosis)?

    • frog
    • cat
    • dog

  2. Question 2

    Why do animals need water?

    • To make noise
    • To build tunnels
    • To stay alive

  3. Question 3

    Which is a basic need of all living things?

    • A television
    • Food or energy
    • A toy

  4. Question 4

    Which is NOT a basic need of a pet fish?

    • Food
    • Clean water
    • A video game

  5. Question 5

    Which pair grows up looking like smaller adults?

    • tadpole and frog
    • puppy and dog
    • caterpillar and butterfly

  6. Question 6

    A drought (no rain) is hard for plants because they lack…

    • air
    • water
    • sunlight

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