Life Cycles of Plants and Animals – Science Stations for Third Grade

Teaching life science, especially biology, inside an elementary classroom can be challenging.  Do you ever just want to take your class outside? Is it hard to explain the life cycles of animals that your students have never encountered? Science lessons also take a lot of planning, in addition to the other core subjects that need to be taught. Life cycles are one piece of the bigger picture in elementary life science — they connect directly to inheritance, ecosystems, and the structure and function of organisms.

A friend and I recently created a set of science stations to address these needs. The science stations include a combination of games, task cards, interactive videos, dissections, worksheets and more to engage students in learning about the growth and development of organisms that have unique and diverse life cycles.

For a deeper look at the plant side of that comparison — including how the stages work and what to teach at each grade level — my guide to plant life cycle stages covers the full cycle from 2nd through 5th grade.

An In-Depth Look at the Plant and Animal Life Cycle Science Stations

Below is information and details about each of the Plant and Animal Life Cycle Science Stations, which address NGSS 3-LS1.B and include concepts such as animal life cycles, plant life cycles, and parts of a plant.

Vocabulary Cards

The colorful vocabulary cards are large and can be used as flash cards or on a bulletin board in your room.

They come in two sets.  The first set has illustrations along with the word and definition. The second set is just the word, printed extra large and bold for fast recognition, and definition. The vocabulary of plant and animal life cycles, such as egg, larva, pollinate, leaf, cocoon, metamorphosis, are included.

Differentiated Responses

Each station includes four different ways to respond to the experience at the station:

• short answer questions
• fill-in the blank questions
• task cards with short answers
• task cards with multiple choice

All the variations are similar to one another, but require a different level of independence. The fill-in-the-blank is the easiest and perfect for your students who struggle with reading, especially if you provide them with a word bank.  The short answer is the most difficult as it requires students to construct their own responses without much support.

Choose the format that best fits your classroom and students. Students are also encouraged to use their science journal via the task cards.  Answer keys are included for all of the differentiated response formats.

Some activities also include a worksheet in addition to the differentiated responses.  This worksheet is the “work” of the station.  The differentiated responses require students to think broadly about the topic and concept.

Watch a Video

The video for the animal life cycle is The Life of a Dung Beetle, one of the most interesting insects (especially to third graders). The dung beetle has a lot of personality and have unique reproductive attributes.  This video keeps the focus of your third grade boys.  Who doesn’t like to talk about dung?

After the video, accessible via hyperlink or QR code, are a question and answer worksheet, a fill-in the blank page, or task cards for students to use with their science journals.  Choose the differentiated response format that works best for your students.

For plants, the video is Stages of Plant Life Cycles.  After the video are the set of learning tools.

Both videos present the material in a straightforward, academic style. Let your students choose which video they’d like to watch and follow up with the worksheets or science journal task cards.

Play a Game Science Station

Play a Game Science Station

The Play Science Station gives students a chance to reinforce their understanding of life cycles through interactive and engaging activities. Instead of relying on a single format, this station offers a mix of digital and hands-on options so students can practice key concepts in different ways.

Students can rotate through animal life cycle video games, which allow them to see stages like egg, larva, and adult in action, helping them visualize changes that happen over time. These games are especially helpful for reinforcing sequencing and vocabulary while keeping students engaged.

In addition to video games, students can work with a board game, a word search, or a crossword puzzle that focuses on life cycle vocabulary and concepts. The board game encourages discussion and peer interaction as students move through questions and prompts, while the word search and crossword provide more structured practice with key terms.

By including a variety of game types, this station supports different learning styles and gives students multiple opportunities to review and apply what they’ve learned about animal life cycles in a meaningful way.

Investigate the Life Cycle of an Ant vs. a Praying Mantis

In this science station, students learn about the praying mantis and the ant, through color diagrams, question and answer pages, and coloring worksheets. The diagrams follow the insects from egg to adult, and the questions are easy to answer after reading the instructions.

Coloring the sheets engages the left brain in learning while the question and answer involves the right brain. After this activity, hand out the question and answer page, or the task cards, or the fill-in the blanks.

Diagram Animal Life Cycles

The colorful cut and paste diagrams take your class through the life cycle of various animals, explaining what happens at each stage. The corresponding worksheet encourages kids to compare different animals and how they develop. Besides frogs, these sheets cover sea turtles, chickens, and salmon.

Also available are black and white cut and paste worksheets that are similar to the color version below.  Cutting and pasting sometimes gets passed over as some setup and cleanup is involved, but it is an activity that calms children down, creating gentle repetitive motion—and it’s a fun way to learn.  The color copy could also be used during the science station and the black and white copies used for homework.

Read about Migrating Geese

This station explores the migration patterns and gestation periods of geese. The literature explains why geese migrate, the migration seasons, flight patterns, and a bit about habitats. Students also learn about goslings and their development into geese, specifically how their bodies and behaviors change.

After the reading section, there’s a short question and answer page, a page of fill-in the blanks, and several sheets of flash cards, to reinforce the reading, just like the rest of the science stations.

Model a Flower Dissection

In this science stations, students cut apart a flower, sort the pieces of it into the common parts of a flower: sepal, petal, pistil, ovary, and stamen.  Students figure out the number of each part and then answer questions about the modeling.

After the modeling, students respond to the experiences using one of the differentiated responses.

Although the video about is mainly for the teacher, it can be used as an instructional video for students, if you fast forward through the introductory part of it.

Explore: What Part of the Plant do we Eat?

This station requires a little bit of leg work before students start their work. You need to bring some fruits and vegetables into the classroom, but other than that just print chart and included station response cards.

Looking at vegetables on trays, students write down what part of the plant they think is edible—root, leaf, flower, stem, seed, or fruit. They place these guesses in an envelope, and later compare them to the answers chart. Worksheets (fill-in, question and answer, and task cards) follow the chart segment. Your students can even eat the experiment when it’s over!

Sort: Plant Life Cycles

In the sort activity, students arrange cards into a specific order or into groups. They record the sort and describe why they chose those piles or groups. Sorting is an a active learning game since it requires students to use their hands and mind to arrange the cards.  Also included is a black and white cut and paste version of the activity.

How to Purchase

You can purchase the Life Cycles: Plants and Animals Science Stations on my website or on Teachers Pay Teachers.

A Bundled set of all the Third Grade Science Stations are also available for purchase at a 20% discount.

Other Third Grade Science Station Sets

Related: Elementary Life Science Activities and Resources — a complete guide to teaching K–5 life science topics.

Each set of science stations is built the same way with 8 separate science stations that approach the standard and topic slightly differently and require students to do a different kind of work.  The eight station themes  (watch, play, investigate, diagram, read, model, explore, and sort) are repeated in each set of stations so that students become familiar with the routine.