Life cycles and reproduction

I can compare life cycles, put their stages in order and explain how plants and animals reproduce.

For grown-ups: this lesson in words

Years 5 and 6 · Science

All living things reproduce: they make young of their own. Here is a mother cat.
Here is a father cat. Most animals need two parents, a female and a male, to make young.
They have 4 kittens. The kittens grew inside their mother, then they were born live.
Cats are mammals. Mammal babies drink their mother's milk. Kittens have the same body shape as adult cats.
Picture: Mother cat: 1 cat, Father cat: 1 cat and Kittens, fed on milk: 4 cats.
A life cycle shows how an animal grows and has young. A hen is a bird, and birds start life in an egg.
The egg has a hard shell. A parent keeps it warm until a chick hatches out.
The chick grows feathers and becomes an adult hen. Its body keeps the same shape.
The adult hen lays eggs, and the life cycle starts again.
Picture: A cycle called Hen life cycle with 3 stages: Egg, kept warm, then Chick hatches, then Adult hen, and back to Egg, kept warm.
Your turn: One stage of this hen's life cycle is hidden. How does a chick start its life?
Picture: A cycle called Hen life cycle with 3 stages: a hidden stage marked ?, then Chick, then Adult hen, and back to the start.
Choose one:
- It hatches from an egg with a hard shell.
- It is born live and drinks milk.
- It hatches from frogspawn in a pond.
Answer
The answer: It hatches from an egg with a hard shell.
A chick hatches from an egg with a hard shell. Then it grows into an adult hen.
Picture: A cycle called Hen life cycle with 3 stages: Egg, then Chick, then Adult hen, and back to Egg.

The stages a living thing goes through as it grows and has young.

reproduce:

To make new living things of the same kind.

metamorphosis:

A big change in body shape as an animal grows, like a tadpole becoming a frog.

pollination:

When pollen is carried from a stamen to a stigma.

fertilisation:

When pollen joins an egg cell in the ovary, so a seed can form.

asexual reproduction:

Making a new plant from just one parent, with no seeds.

This is the first part of the lesson. Grown-ups can unlock every lesson in the grown-ups area.