Grades 2 through 3
Life Cycles
Birth, growth, reproduction, death. Two organisms running all four stages at once.
Most classroom life cycle work shows students one or two stages and a diagram for the rest. This kit closes the loop twice over. Brine shrimp hatch within a day or two, grow and molt in front of the class, reproduce, and start again. The radish runs the same four stages on the other side of the windowsill, seed to seed. Students are not reading a diagram of a life cycle, they are watching two of them.
How the lab meets it
What students do that satisfies the standard
NGSS 3-LS1-1
Standard: Develop models to describe that organisms have unique and diverse life cycles but all have in common birth, growth, reproduction and death.
What the kit does: Unique and diverse is the hard half of that standard, because it needs two organisms that are nothing alike. A radish and a brine shrimp are about as far apart as elementary science gets, and both run all four stages inside a school term. Students build one model that has to cover both, which is exactly the argument the standard is after.
Texas 2.10.C
Standard: Investigate and record the stages insects such as grasshoppers and butterflies undergo.
What the kit does: An honest note. This code names insects, and brine shrimp are crustaceans, so the kit is a near fit rather than a direct one. What it does deliver is the investigating and recording: daily observation, staged change, a log built over weeks. Many Texas teachers run it alongside their insect unit rather than in place of it.
Florida SC.2.L.16.1
Standard: Observe and describe major stages in the life cycles of plants and animals.
What the kit does: Florida asks for plants and animals, both, which is the one standard here that the kit answers completely on its own. The radish covers the plant side seed to seed. The brine shrimp cover the animal side hatch to hatch. One setup, one week of observation, both halves of the standard.
Free downloads
Our Lesson Plans
Each lesson is one Word file. Teacher pages and answer keys first, then the student pages behind the orange PRINT FROM HERE divider.
My Pet Brainy Briny Family. Grades K to 5
What it covers: Keeping the brine shrimp going long enough to watch them hatch, grow, molt and produce the next batch, with the radish running its own cycle alongside.
How it is built: One Word file. Teacher notes and answer keys up front, then the student pages behind the orange PRINT FROM HERE divider.
Administrator Guide
One guide for the whole elementary program rather than one per lesson. This is the copy to hand a principal or a curriculum director.
All the elementary lesson plans
Every elementary lesson plan sitting in one folder, if you would rather take the whole set at once.