Grade 2 Life Science Unit:

Life Cycles

1. How does a small seed turn into a plant?
2. How do baby animals turn into adult animals?
3. How are life cycles different for different living things?
4. How do living things reproduce?

1. Understand that living things have different kinds of life cycles and go through different kinds of changes during their life.

1. Sequence and describe the life cycle stages of various plants.
2. Sequence and describe the life cycle stages of various animals.
3. Make accurate written and drawn observations applying scientific vocabulary.
4. Measure data accurately using appropriate tools (such as a ruler to measure height of plants).

1. The major stages of animal life cycles: birth, growth and development, reproduction, and death.
2. The major stages of plant life cycles: seed, germination, seedling, pollination (adult), and reproduction (making new seeds).
3. Animals such as frogs and butterflies go through metamorphosis during their life cycle (eg. egg-tadpole-frog, egg-caterpillar-chrysalis-butterfly)
4. There are different kinds of animal life cycles: complete metamorphosis, incomplete metamorphosis, and embryonic development.
5. Flowers are responsible for most plant reproduction by making new seeds inside fruits.
6. When plants and animals reproduce they make more of the same kind of plant or animal.

• Life cycle: a diagram that shows in sequence the stages of a living thing’s life
• Metamorphosis: when a living thing goes through a complete and quick change in its body structure (for example caterpillars turning into butterflies)
• Embryo: the stage of a living thing before it is born, hatches, or sprouts
• Reproduction, Reproduce: when a living things makes new living things of the same kind
• Germination: when the plant embryo sprouts and grows out of the seed
• Pollination: when pollen is moved from one flower to another, which enables the plant to make new seeds and reproduce