(Be sensitive to kids who don’t live with biological parents.) Extend the exercise by discussing how students look the same and different from their parents/guardians. Ask “what is different about the babies and the parents?”ģ. Have students study the pictures of animal babies and their parents.Ģ. Photos of animal parents and their youngġ.By the middle of elementary school, students can begin to tackle more challenging topics, like dominant and recessive genes. This conversation can begin at the earliest elementary levels with conversations about the fact that children do not look exactly like their parents or that the new kittens in the house don’t look like their mom or dad. Most babies are not exact copies of their parents, which means they have some differences, however slight. You might want to have a list of possible choices to direct students to some of the more interesting creatures. Have students choose either an amazing protective parent or a surprising tough baby and share about it in a short report, a poster, or a presentation to the class. Baby komodo dragons climb trees to avoid predators that may include their own parents!Īctivity: Protective Parents, Tough Babiesĭiscuss the ways that humans protect and care for their young and the signals human babies/children use to communicate their needs to their parents. Some baby animals have to be scrappier than others to survive. Many baby birds have bright spots in their mouths that scream “place food here” to the parent. They protect their young from predators by holding them in their mouths.īaby animals also have ways to signal their needs to their parents. For example, Arowana (fish) fathers are mouth brooders. Some animal parents have unusual or extraordinary strategies for protecting their young. Have older students challenge themselves a bit and choose a less common animal.Īmong animals, there are widely ranging levels of parental care, from fretting over them for 18+ years before launching them into the world to laying eggs and leaving young to fend for themselves. Younger kids can tackle the classics, like frogs and ladybugs. Invite them to create a poster showing the life cycle of that creature.

See links at the end of the article for image resources.Īssign each student an animal or have them choose. Note: Tailor these to your audience-easy matches for young students, harder ones for older students. Have students share their sets, giving their classmates an overview of that animal’s life cycle. You might want to designate an area for students to go after they have located their matching card(s).Ĥ. Have students move about the room until they locate their match(es).

Photo cards of life cycle stages (ranging from young/adult for most vertebrates to egg/larvae/pupa/adult for many insects).ģ.Photo cards of animal babies and parents, enough for each student in your class to have one card (if you have an odd number of students, count yourself too!) OR.What I like about this topic is that it can be accessed by very young children, who might explore very simple life cycles like puppies and ladybugs, but it can be made very challenging for older students, who can explore the unusual life cycles of creatures like cicada and jellyfish. Since babies really need no further introduction, we’ll jump right into the activities!Īll living things on earth have one thing in common-a life cycle that starts with birth, continues with growth and then reproduction, and ends with death. This makes oohing and aahing over leggy lambs or tiny tadpoles and other baby animals a perfect segue into several related science topics, including life cycles, survival strategies, and inherited traits. All kids love babies-although big kids might not want to admit it.

Baby animals match