This resource accompanies our Rethink 2nd Grade Science Structures & Functions of Living Organisms unit. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning.

This young child website provides links to information and worksheets detailing life cycles of a variety of animals including, mammals, amphibians, reptile, birds, and arthropods.

In this short video, join Emily and Emma from the Prairie Ridge Ecostation in Raleigh to take a look at some birds and learn about how we can observe all kinds of wildlife in our everyday lives.

In this lesson, students will explore the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. They will go outside and observe milkweed plants and identify the stages of monarch that are seen on the plants. Students will also make a pop-up book of the life stages.

The lesson plan for teaching the life cycle of a sea turtle is included. Read alouds and a video are attached. A template for drawing the life cycle is attached.

In this lesson, students will illustrate the life cycle of a butterfly and compare the butterfly life cycle to that of a different insect or animal.

In this activity, students play a simple card game based on the stages of metamorphosis in insects.

Students understand the changes that a blue crab goes through during molting, and why it is important for scientists to understand these changes.

This resource supports the English language development of English language learners. This resource contains an article about ants, explains the life cycle of an ant with pictures, the colony life cycle, and has a coloring page of the life cycle (p.28), among others.

This resource supports the English language development of English language learners. This page has numerous pictures showing complete and incomplete metamorphosis. Some of the organisms included are frogs, butterflies, and mosquitoes. The articles are available in Spanish, also.

In this activity, students read The Icky Sticky Frog, practicing literacy skills as they develop an understanding of the life cycle of frogs, specifically tadpoles.

This Project GLAD unit will address the life cycle.  It is an integrated science and ELA unit for 2nd grade.  Students will learn to summarize the life cycle of animals including birth, developing into an adult, reproducing, aging and death.

Students will compare life cycles of several species. Students will use Google Slides (or PowerPoint) to create a life cycle diagram.

In this lesson, students learn the concept of metamorphosis in an organism's life cycle by studying the growth and development of butterflies, frogs, and dragonflies.

Lesson is posted with permission from the Perkins School for the Blind.

In this lesson, students will use pasta to model the four stages of the butterfly life cycle.

In this lesson, students observe the life cycle of the mealworm over a period of 4 weeks.

2nd-grade students went on a field trip to learn about the animals and their life cycle at Merchant Mill Pond in Gates County. They told the teachers what pictures they would like to have. Once back in school, they researched information on the animals to create a Thinklink. There are videos, photos, and links.

In this short video, students will learn how female loggerhead sea turtles make their way to beaches all along the Atlantic Ocean to lay their eggs.