Autumn Life Cycle Studies

How exciting it is to welcome a new season!  As we bid goodbye to summer and celebrate the arrival of the colorful season, what have you been preparing in your school and home school so far?  Around this time of the year, I love preparing activities of life cycles of autumn animals and seasonal plants.  It's my way of integrating science into the season and, at the same time be aware of the cycles of life that begin in autumn.

Here are some of the materials we have and use at home. Come take a look at these materials in action!

Spring Animal Life Cycles

I am so excited to introduce these new sets of life cycle materials to you!  These sets got even BIGGER (with more printables)! But no worries to those who have purchased previously, older sets will be updated soon at no extra cost.

In this post, I am going to feature the life cycle of a (mallard) duck as we are already using it at home. I'm also listing down other spring animal (animals born in spring) life cycle sets that are also available in the shop.

Life Cycle Learning Activity Packs

I added some life cycle sets in the shop and today I want to present the activities included in each set to give you an idea on how to use them.  I hope you will find this guide helpful.  If you have any questions you can post them in the comment section of this post or message me a question in my printable shop.

Life Cycle of a Frog Learning Activities

Nothing beats hands-on learning, but because we have no access to tadpoles and frogs, we just rely on books, educational toys and create meaningful materials to achieve the "hands-on experience".  With the success of our Water Cycle activities, I made a similar learning pack for our frog life cycle.  The learning pack is perfect for kids ages 4 to 7 years old, something that will grow with your child through the years.  It contains different activities for different stages of learning for the child. All you needed to do is print the one that suits your needs.

Introducing Life Cycles to Younger Kids

In our home, springtime brings a renewed focus on the topic of life cycles. As a parent, I am often asked how to introduce the concept of metamorphosis, larva, pupa and more to young children who may not be able to visualize these processes. It is a fascinating subject that is easy to understand. I begin by telling engaging stories that help children understand that just like humans, baby animals come from their mothers and fathers. Some animals start their life as eggs and then undergo a gradual transformation that ultimately leads to adulthood. 

To help explain these concepts more effectively, we use a variety of learning materials that bring these life cycles to life for children. As we follow the "Montessori" philosophy in our homeschool, we prefer to use hands-on learning experiences that allow children to explore and learn in a natural way. Whether it's using specialized learning materials or observing real-life examples in nature, we strive to make learning about life cycles as engaging and interactive as possible.

Life Cycle of Apples for Preschoolers

Autumn time is apple season and the perfect time to learn about them! We started our "apple" week last Monday, and today, Vito and I just finished learning where apples came from. I was so inspired by our Water Cycle activity (Vito loved this activity so much!) that I decided to do the same approach with our Apple study.

Life Cycle Activities for Kids

Life cycles have fascinated my kids throughout the years. We often worked on them during springtime, but I would sometimes add them in our animal or plant studies too.  I’m often asked how do I introduce this subject area to my kids and I would always say that it really depends on their age and interest. For the young ones, it’s all about play-based learning and storytelling.  While for older kids, they are drawn towards the details and the science behind them.

To give you an idea, here’s our progressive way of learning the life cycles.

Introducing the Life Cycle of a Chicken to Preschoolers

We are learning about birds this month, and the first activity that we did was to look into the life of a chicken.  The chicken, especially the hen is a popular subject for bird study because it’s convenient and always available for nature-study.  Take for example in our case, Vito got really interested into chickens during our visit to the park weeks ago.  He just can’t stop talking about his experience with the chickens in the park, so I decided to borrow some books in the library about chickens so we can talk about this bird more.