Label the Butterfly Life Cycle

Four large circles sit in a square on this 2nd grade page, linked by orange arrows that run clockwise: an egg on a leaf top left, a caterpillar on a leaf top right, a chrysalis hanging from a leaf bottom right and a butterfly bottom left, with the last arrow running back up to the egg. Each picture has a ruled line underneath. A word bank at the top holds five names in mixed order: the four stage names egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly, plus tadpole. The child writes each name on the line under its picture and crosses out the one name that does not belong.

Writing the stage names is the grade 2 step after numbering them on the base page. The pictures are already in order, so the task is vocabulary: can the child connect caterpillar and chrysalis to the right drawings and spell them from the bank? Tadpole is the intruder. It is a real life-cycle word and a very likely wrong answer for a child who has just done the frog page, which is exactly why it is here. Crossing it out is a quick check that the two cycles are not being blended.

One sheet, four labels, one word crossed out. Spelling chrysalis is hard; the bank gives it, and that is enough at this grade. Use it after the base page and the frog cut and paste, and before the metamorphosis face, where children sort young animals into three cycles at once. A classroom chart with the four words and the loop of arrows makes a good anchor for the week.