Animal Life Cycles Jeopardy

Caterpillars, tadpoles, eggs, and babies: a life cycles review game for young scientists. Free to copy, with players buzzing in on phones or tablets.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

For the classroom

Copies all 30 clues into an editor of your own. Free, no account needed.

Every clue on this board

This page is public, so anyone can read the answers — copy the board and swap a few clues before game day.

Butterflies

$200
A butterfly's life begins as one of these, laid on a leaf.
What is an egg?
$400
This hungry, wormlike larva hatches from a butterfly egg.
What is a caterpillar?
$600
Monarch caterpillars eat only the leaves of this plant.
What is milkweed?
$800
A monarch caterpillar hangs upside down and forms this hard green case.
What is a chrysalis?
$1,000
A butterfly's life cycle goes egg, larva, this stage, then adult.
What is the pupa?

Frogs

$200
This baby frog swims with a tail.
What is a tadpole?
$400
Frogs lay their eggs in this.
What is water?
$600
Frogs belong to this group of animals that live part of their lives in water and part on land.
What are amphibians?
$800
Like fish, young tadpoles breathe with these.
What are gills?
$1,000
As a tadpole grows, these body parts appear, the back ones first.
What are legs?

Birds and Eggs

$200
Birds build these to hold their eggs.
What are nests?
$400
A mother hen sits on her eggs to keep them this.
What is warm?
$600
A chick uses a tiny bump on its beak called an egg tooth to break out of this.
What is the shell?
$800
This largest bird in the world also lays the largest eggs.
What is an ostrich?
$1,000
Chicken eggs hatch after about this many weeks.
What is three?

Mammals

$200
Mammal mothers feed their babies this.
What is milk?
$400
Mammals have this covering on their bodies.
What is hair (or fur)?
$600
This Australian mammal carries its baby in a pouch.
What is a kangaroo?
$800
This unusual mammal with a duck-like bill lays eggs.
What is a platypus?
$1,000
This biggest mammal of all lives in the ocean and gives birth to live babies.
What is the blue whale?

Baby Animal Names

$200
This is the name for a baby dog.
What is a puppy?
$400
This is the name for a baby cat.
What is a kitten?
$600
This is the name for a baby cow.
What is a calf?
$800
This is the name for a baby horse.
What is a foal?
$1,000
This is the name for a baby swan.
What is a cygnet?

What Comes Next

$200
Egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and then this.
What is a butterfly?
$400
A puppy grows up to become this.
What is a dog?
$600
A tadpole that has grown legs and lost its tail has become this.
What is a frog?
$800
An egg hatches into a chick, which grows up to become this.
What is a chicken?
$1,000
This hopping insect, named for the plants it lives among, goes from egg to nymph to adult with no pupa stage.
What is a grasshopper?

Final Jeopardy — Big Changes

This word describes the complete change in body form when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly or a tadpole becomes a frog.

What is metamorphosis?

How to run this board

Students compare how different animals grow up on this board: the four stages of a butterfly, a frog's trip from egg to tadpole to adult, birds that hatch, mammals that are born live, and the vocabulary for baby animals that young children love. A mixed column asks them to spot which stage comes next.

The Baby Animal Names column is quick and fun, so save it for the middle of the game when energy dips. If a team misses a life cycle clue, sketch the stages as a circle on the whiteboard before moving on; seeing the loop makes the next clue easier for everyone.

For mixed-ability groups, allow teams to hold up a hand-drawn stage instead of saying the word.

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