Get a caterpillar for the students to observe on a daily basis. You can either find one outside, or you can buy a caterpillar larva. Create a small habitat for the caterpillar in the classroom. Each day have the children look at the caterpillar to see how it is doing and then draw what it looks like in a notebook. Along with the drawing, they can write out any physical differences they noticed from the day before.
For this activity, you can use both frogs and butterflies as examples. Provide each student with a worksheet featuring the different stages of a frog or butterfly's life cycle. Have the students color in the pictures and then cut them out. Once all the students have the pictures colored and cut out, provide them with glue sticks and construction paper. Instruct each student to glue the pictures on the construction paper in the correct order.
Provide each student with worksheets showing pictures of each stage in the life cycle for either butterflies or frogs. Have the students color the pictures and then cut them out. The students should then glue the pictures to craft Popsicle sticks to use as puppets. The students can then put on life cycle plays in small groups or as a class.
Have the students complete the project in Section 2. Then discuss with the children how the animal's life cycle compares to the human life cycle. Ask the students about the different stages humans go to in comparison to the animals discussed. For example, the frog goes from egg to tadpole to froglet to frog. Humans go from baby to child to adolescent to adult. Have the children go through old magazines and find pictures of humans at each stage in the life cycle. Once they find and cut out the pictures, have them glue those pictures in the correct order on a second sheet of construction paper.