Science // Animals of the World

How Animals Have Babies

Know that different animals have their babies in different ways — some lay eggs (birds, reptiles, fish, insects), some give birth to live young (most mammals) — and that babies may look like miniature adults or look very different from their parents

Ages
5 to 7
Type
Concept
Builds on
1 topic
Leads to
2 topics

Quick check

If the learner sees a nest with eggs in a nature programme, can they explain that birds lay eggs and the babies hatch out, but dogs and cats have their babies born alive?

Ask this to see whether the topic is secure.

Topic // Mastery

What mastery looks like

What a learner can do once this topic is secure.
  • Gives examples of animals that lay eggs and animals that give birth to live young
  • Describes at least one example of a baby that looks different from its parent (e.g., tadpole/frog, caterpillar/butterfly)
  • Shows curiosity about how different animals have their babies

Topic // Map

Where this fits

What to learn first and what this topic opens up, with the reason for each link. Required links come first.
  • RequiredMust come first
  • HelpfulHelps, but not essential

Before this

1 topic
  • Animals EverywhereRequired

    Animals of the World // Ages 5 to 7

    Animal babies builds on knowing animals live in diverse environments

You are here

How Animals Have Babies

Ages 5 to 7 // Concept

Leads to

2 topics
  • Animal Life StagesHelpful

    Organisms & Life Processes // Ages 6 to 7

    Animal babies topic enriched by curriculum coverage of offspring and life stages

  • Offspring resemble parentsHelpful

    Organisms & Life Processes // Ages 6 to 11

    Animal babies looking different from parents connects to curriculum offspring resemblance topic

Topic // Research-informed

Teaching notes

From the Marble Skill Taxonomy. These notes have not been validated in classrooms, so treat them as a starting point for your own judgement.

The approach

For ages 5–7 (How Animals Have Babies): children learn two big ideas — (1) different animals have young in different ways, some LAY EGGS (birds, and most fish, reptiles, amphibians and insects) and some give birth to LIVE YOUNG (most mammals); and (2) some babies look like miniature adults (lamb, chick, kitten) while others transform completely (tadpole→frog, caterpillar→butterfly) yet are still the SAME animal growing up. Teaching stays strictly on how babies ARRIVE (laid vs born) and GROW — not on reproduction mechanisms, which are developmentally later and RSE-governed. Activities combine an egg-layer vs live-bearer sort (with gentle surprises that break the mammal=live shortcut) and a 'grow the baby' metamorphosis sequence.

Common misconceptions

  • Believing ALL animals lay eggs, or that only birds/chickens lay eggs — missing that fish, reptiles, amphibians and insects lay eggs too.
  • Thinking every baby animal is just a smaller version of its parent — not expecting complete transformations like tadpole→frog or caterpillar→butterfly.
  • Assuming mammals never lay eggs and non-mammals never bear live young (the platypus and live-bearing sharks are real exceptions).
  • Thinking a caterpillar and its butterfly (or a tadpole and its frog) are different, unrelated animals rather than life stages of the SAME animal.
  • Conflating 'having babies' with human family framing; at this age it is simply 'laid as an egg or born live, then grows up'.

Useful representations

  • A two-bin sort: EGG-LAYERS (bird, fish, frog, lizard, insect) vs LIVE-YOUNG (dog, cow, human, whale).
  • Metamorphosis strips: spawn→tadpole→froglet→frog; egg→caterpillar→chrysalis→butterfly — the 'grow the baby' reveal.
  • A 'looks like / looks different' pairing board: baby beside adult (lamb–sheep look alike; tadpole–frog look different).
  • Real hatching / birth imagery as the concrete anchor.

Teaching practices

  • Build the core EGG vs LIVE-YOUNG sort with plenty of examples, deliberately including surprises that break the mammal=live, everything-else=egg shortcut (e.g. a shark that bears live young; a duck-billed platypus mammal that lays eggs) — kept as delightful curiosities, not rules to master.
  • Make the 'looks different' idea vivid with the two canonical transformations — tadpole→frog and caterpillar→(egg→)caterpillar→pupa→butterfly — as an animated 'grow the baby' reveal; the shock that a tadpole becomes a frog is the memorable moment.
  • Contrast 'mini-adult' babies (lamb, chick, kitten resemble their parents quickly) with 'transformer' babies (frog, butterfly) so children hold both patterns.
  • Use real photos/video of hatching and of young growing up; at 5–7 concrete imagery beats definitions.
  • Keep strictly to how babies ARRIVE (laid vs born) and GROW — do not stray into how reproduction happens; that is developmentally and curricularly later (and RSE-governed).

Activities to try

  1. 1

    Sort the animals: egg-layers or live-young?

    Why it works: Many kinds of animals lay eggs — not just birds — and most mammals have live young; nature also has surprising exceptions, so the shortcut 'mammals are born, everything else lays eggs' doesn't always hold.

    1. Place or group animal pictures into two bins: EGG-LAYERS and LIVE-YOUNG.
    2. Put the hen, an egg-laying fish (e.g. a salmon or goldfish), frog, an egg-laying lizard (e.g. a gecko) and a beetle into the egg-layers bin; put the dog, cow, whale and human into the live-young bin.
    3. After sorting with familiar animals, meet a surprise: a platypus (a mammal that LAYS eggs) and a shark that bears LIVE young — discuss why these are delightful exceptions, not new rules to memorise.
    4. Say aloud one animal that lays eggs and one animal that has live babies.
  2. 2

    Grow the baby: watch a creature transform

    Why it works: A tadpole IS a baby frog and a caterpillar IS a baby butterfly — the SAME animal at an early life stage. Some young change shape completely as they grow (metamorphosis) while others look like small versions of their parents from early on.

    1. Advance a life-cycle sequence step by step: spawn → tadpole → froglet → frog, watching legs sprout and the tail shrink.
    2. Advance a second sequence: egg → caterpillar → chrysalis → butterfly, watching the caterpillar eat, change into a chrysalis, and emerge as a butterfly.
    3. After each transformation, decide and tag whether the grown-up 'looks the same' or 'looks different' from its baby.
    4. Compare with a 'mini-adult' pairing: place a lamb beside a sheep and a chick beside a hen — these already look like small versions of their parents.
  3. 3

    Check and talk: same animal or different?

    Why it works: Children can give examples of egg-layers and live-bearers, and recognise that a very different-looking baby (tadpole, caterpillar) is still the same animal, which will change as it grows.

    1. Match each baby to its grown-up (baby→adult pairing).
    2. Put life-stage cards in the right order (e.g. order the tadpole→frog stages).
    3. Categorise a fresh set of animals as egg-layers or live-young.
    4. Answer the diagnostic prompt: 'A frog lays eggs in a pond, and out come tadpoles that look nothing like frogs. Are the tadpoles baby frogs, or a completely different animal? How do you know — and what will happen to them as they grow?'
    5. Discuss: Does a kitten look like a small cat or completely different? Do ALL babies look like their parents? What will grow on the tadpole, and what will disappear, as it gets bigger?

Science // Animals of the World

More in Animals of the World

All 27 topics