Animal Life Stages
Recognise that animals, including humans, have offspring which grow into adults, and describe basic animal life stages
What a learner can do afterwards
- Describe the basic life stages of a human: baby, child, teenager, adult
- Give examples of other animals and their young (e.g. kitten → cat, chick → hen)
- Explain that offspring grow and change as they develop into adults
1 · Read
Every living thing starts small and grows over time. People grow through four life stages: baby, child, teenager, then adult. Other animals grow up too, even though they use different names for their young.
A kitten is a baby cat. As it grows, it turns into a full-grown cat. A chick is a baby chicken. As it grows, it turns into a chicken.
A baby animal will not look exactly like its grown-up self. It changes size and shape as it grows, but it is always the same animal.
Animals, including people, grow through life stages and change as they become adults.
More to read
How Your Bones Grow as You Grow
Did you know a baby has more bones than a grown-up? It is true! A baby is born with about 300 little bones. Many of them are soft and bendy at first.
As the baby grows into a kid, and then into an adult, some of those little bones join together. They grow into bigger, stronger bones. A grown-up has about 206 bones.
Your bones keep growing for a long time. Most bones stop getting longer when a person is about 16 to 18 years old. That is when a kid has grown into an adult.
Every Animal Has a Life Cycle
Have you ever seen a caterpillar turn into a butterfly? That is called a life cycle. A butterfly starts as an egg. The egg hatches into a caterpillar. The caterpillar rests inside a pupa. Then it comes out as a butterfly.
Other living things have life cycles too. A life cycle is all the steps a living thing goes through from the start of its life until it is grown up.
A chick hatches from an egg and grows into a hen. A kitten grows into a cat. A baby grows into a kid, then a teenager, then an adult.
Animal Parents and Their Babies
Animals have babies, and those babies are called offspring. A mother cat has kittens. A hen has chicks. A dog has puppies.
Many animal parents work hard to help their babies live and grow. A mother bird flies back and forth all day to bring food to her chicks. A mother bear keeps her cubs close and teaches them how to find food.
This care matters. Babies that are fed and kept safe are more likely to grow up into strong adults. When those babies grow up, they can have offspring of their own one day.
2 · Watch
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Where it sits
Learn first
Nothing; this is a starting point.
Optional connections
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
24 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.