Students can learn about a turtle's life cycle by ordering the different stages that occur. Make worksheets with a picture representing each stage of the lifestyle and a brief description. Have students number the sections according to the order in which they think they occur. If you do this activity before you teach the life cycle, it gets students thinking about the logic of why certain stages occur before others. For older students, leave the descriptions blank and have them fill them in as a quiz.
A topic that has a number of different sections works well for group work. Break the class into five groups and assign one stage of the life cycle to each: nesting, hatchlings, nursery, foraging and breeding. Ask each group to research their stage of the life cycle. Groups should find what occurs at their stage and why it is important. Have groups present their findings to the rest of the class. Begin with the nesting group and end with the breeding group.
Sometimes the best way for students to learn is to do something creative. Have your students make visual representations of the turtle's life cycle. Choose drawing, painting or modeling clay as the medium, and ask students to illustrate one phase of the life cycle, or the entire thing. Have students present their drawing, painting or model to the rest of the class. Put them on display around the room for all students to see.
Use the entire class to stage a dramatic representation of the life cycle of the turtle. Break the class into groups that each represent one stage of the life cycle. Have each group come up with a dramatic routine for its stage and practice it. Once all the groups are well rehearsed, ask them to merge their routines and act them out in sequence. Practice until one stage flows smoothly from one to the next. You can have one member of each group narrate the life cycle as it happens.