Life Cycles Topic

This is the story of Tad, the smallest tadpole among her siblings. Tad desperately tries to keep up with the others, not wanting to get left behind – especially as she has heard that ‘Big Blub’ is lurking in the depths of the water. Over time, Tad watches her siblings grow and change, and eventually make the leap out of the water as they become fully grown frogs. When the time comes for Tad to follow in their path, it will take a heap of courage to embrace the next adventure and leap into life.

This is a vibrantly illustrated nature story by Benji Davies, with plenty to spot and count. A good book for Reception or KS1 about life cycles, growth and change or facing new challenges.

Godfrey the Frog is a joyful story which teaches children the importance of accepting themselves and being happy with who they are.

Change happens – sometimes quickly, sometimes seemingly not at all. At the beginning of the story, Godfrey transforms from a small egg to developing ‘a pair of lovely arms’ and growing a ‘long, sticky tongue’. Finally, he transforms into a frog. He imagines how his frog-like state may change, creating many images to make a young reader giggle with glee.

Readers see the seasons change around him, but to Godfrey’s frustration, he remains a frog throughout. Godfrey begins to compare himself to the other animals around him – even the snail has a stunning shell and the deer has amazing antlers!

After wishing to be different, he slowly but surely learns that being a frog isn’t so bad after all, teaching children an important life lesson about self-acceptance.

The story concludes with a step-by-step diagram of how a tiny little egg transforms into a frog. A perfect way to teach little ones about life cycles.

Ever wondered how fruit starts to grow? This fun, lift-the-flap book guides you through the parts of a flower, how different pollinators support the plant life-cycle and how other parts of plants are used in our food. There is a great mix of scientific detail and engaging story-telling and this book is a great accompaniment to primary science topics about lifecycles and growing plants.

The information is presented attractively in bite-size chunks, making it accessible for children across the primary age-range, and the illustrations are colourful and eye-catching.

This would be a great text to use as a model when writing explanations about plant life-cycles, and there are step-by-step instructions at the end of the book for conducting your own pollination investigation.

We highly recommend this STEM-themed series from inclusive publisher Child’s Play.

In Rosa Explores Life Cycles, Rosa and her friends discover frogspawn and find out about what happens in the life cycle of a frog. The book doesn’t shy away from technical vocabulary, and young children will encounter words like amphibians, larva, gils, embryo and metamorphosis  – all explained by the children on their scientific learning quest in a narrative non-fiction style. The format is a board book with colourful illustrations, appealing to younger children but actually putting a vast amount of learning into little hands.

We like the diverse cast of characters, the matter-of-fact tone and the discovery-based approach to learning the story celebrates.

Little Brown Nut is the newest addition to the series, ‘Start Small, Think Big’ covering growth and life cycles. This non-fiction picture book tells the story of the Brazil nut tree and shows why the rainforest is important to local people and the wider world. The book features full-colour illustrations, a textured cover with a peep-through hole and giant fold-out map, and covers themes of life cycles, tree germination, photosynthesis and habitats,

The reader is instantly transported through the peep-hole cover into the Amazon Rainforest to experience the story of the brazil nut, as told through first-person (or first-nut!) narrative. The journey spans from the nut falling from its tree, to encountering a wide variety of animals on the forest floor and being buried to finally meeting humans, who will use the nuts they gather in the forest in different ways. The non-fiction/story blend explains the life-cycle of the nut with questions for the reader to explore further, such as ‘Can you see…?’ sparking interest and interaction. The interaction continues through to the end pages, with an impressive six-page fold-out section inside the back cover that will go down a treat in the classroom (including a life-cycle diagram and map of South America) and an I-Spy type game to encourage readers to have a second look.

The main text is aimed at emerging readers, with additional information for confident readers and shared reading with an adult. We particularly like learning new vocabulary, eg: agouti (rodent-like guinea pig of the rainforest) and that it’s filled with facts about how something as small as a single brazil nut is so interconnected with both its local habitat and the wider world. Schools will value this as an interactive non-fiction text that immediately captures children’s interests as well as one that aids learning in topics about rainforests, life cycles and habitats.

Follow the journey of a tiny sycamore seed as it becomes a sapling and then grows over time to become an enormous tree that houses all sorts of life. This is a gentle and lyrical text with beautiful illustrations.