Hi, everyone.

I'm really glad you came to learn with me today.

I'm Mrs. Horan, and I'm really looking forward to learning all about the differences and similarities in mammal and bird life cycles with you in today's lesson.

Today's lesson is part of the unit on reproduction and life cycles of animals.

The lesson is called "Comparing the life cycles of mammals and birds," and we will be learning all about the similarities and differences of life cycles for these two different types of animals.

The outcome for our lesson today is to describe the differences in the life cycles of mammals and birds.

This lesson builds on what you already know about both mammals and birds and their life cycles.

Your knowledge about these two types of animals and how they grow and develop over time is going to be really important for today's work.

The lesson is part of our big learning questions, what are living things and what are they made of, and why are there similarities and differences between living things? These are the keywords that we're going to be focusing on today, life cycle, mammal, bird, similarity, and difference.

It's quite likely that you're already really familiar with these, but they will be explained as we go through the lesson just in case.

Here are some explanations of the keywords.

As I said, we will think about each word when we come to it during the lesson if we need to, so you don't need to look too closely at them now.

They're just here in case you need a reminder of anything later on and need to look back for a quick check.

Our lesson today comes in two parts.

We will start with the first part, mammal and bird life cycles.

Much like you, Sofia has been learning about life cycles.

We know that a life cycle is the stages and changes an animal goes through as it ages.

Sofia says, "Birds and mammals both start small, then grow bigger as they age.

They both reproduce as adults.

I think bird and mammal life cycles are the same." You can see we have a picture there of a bird and a chimpanzee with their offspring to help you with your thinking.

Do you agree with Sofia? Pause the video here to have a think and then talk about your ideas with a partner.

What did you think? Did you agree with everything Sofia said? Only parts of it, or none of it? Let's do some more learning to find out how accurate she was with her thinking.

Different types of animals have different life cycles.

We can look at different life cycles to compare them.

Let's look at mammals first.

Remember, mammals are warm-blooded vertebrate animals that give birth to live young and have hair or fur.

The mammal life cycle has three stages, which are baby, young, and adult.

You can see a photo of an adult sheep there with its offspring.

Mammal babies look similar to their adult parents, just smaller.

Now birds.

Birds are warm-blooded vertebrate animals that lay eggs and have feathers, wings, and a beak.

The bird life cycle has four stages, egg, hatchling, fledgling, and adult.

In the picture here, we have a duck and its eggs.

Like mammals, young birds have the same body structure as their parents, but they are smaller.

Let's start thinking about these two types of animal life cycle together.

Here, we have life cycle diagrams for rabbits, which are mammals, and chickens, which are birds.

Look carefully at both of these diagrams. What similarities can you see? Similarities mean things that are the same, things they have in common.

What similarities are there between those two life cycles? I'd also like you to think about what differences are there.

Differences are things that are not the same.

It might be a good idea to pause the video here so you can have a really good look at each diagram, think about the similarities and differences, and have a quick chat with a partner about your ideas.

What did you notice? Maybe you saw that both life cycles have an adult stage at which they can reproduce.

You might also have noticed that both mammals and birds grow over time, but their structure or shape stays the same from when they are very young to when they are very old.

You might also have known that young mammals and birds usually get help from their parents when they are very young and are unable to look after themselves.

In terms of differences, you might have seen that mammals have three stages in their life cycles, while birds have four.

Mammals are born living from their mothers, whereas birds hatch from eggs laid by their mothers.

Mammals also feed on milk made by their mother when they are very young, and birds do not.

Did you think of anything else? Let's have a quick check for understanding.

Take a look at this statement and decide whether you think it is true or false.

Mammal and bird life cycles are the same.

That statement is false.

Now, can you justify your answer? Is it false because they can both reproduce when they are adults, or because birds have four stages in their life cycle and mammals have three stages in their life cycle? Well done, mammal and bird life cycles are not the same because birds have four stages in their life cycle and mammals only have three.

Scientists use diagrams and tables to communicate information to others.

These allow scientists to sort and represent information in a clear way.

Scientists are always keen to share their work with as many people as possible and for it to be easy for everyone to understand, so tables and diagrams are used very often.

Let's have a look at some common types of diagram used by scientists.

Are you familiar with any of these diagrams? Maybe you've seen them before or even used them yourself.

You might know the names of some of them.

The first type of diagram we could see there was a life cycle diagram.

There's another one here showing us the life cycle of a chimpanzee, which is a mammal.

A life cycle diagram can be used to communicate the stages in an animal's life and the order that they come in.

You can see in this diagram here that the chimpanzee has three stages in its life cycle, baby, young, and adult, and you can see the order that they come in by looking at the arrows.

There is an arrow going from the adult to the baby because at the adult stage, they can reproduce and create more baby animals.

Next, we have a table.

A table can be used to organise and group information together.

This table here has been used to show animal classification.

All the animals in each column in this table belong to the same group.

You can see there are headings at the top of each column to tell you what it contains.

So mammals are on the left-hand side, and birds on the right.

Tables are very versatile and can be used in lots of different contexts.

You'll definitely have used one in science before and probably also in lessons on other subjects too.

And the third type of diagram we are looking at today is called a Venn diagram.

A Venn diagram can be used to communicate similarities and differences, so things that are the same and things that are different.

In this diagram here, we have mammals and birds.

Things that relate to just mammals are in the circle on the left, and things that relate to just birds are in the circle on the right.

We can see that fur or hair is only relevant to mammals, and feathers is only relevant to birds.

Anything that is similar about these animal groups is shown in the intersection of the two circles.

So can you see that crossover in the middle of the two circles? That's where we can put things that are relevant to both birds and mammals, such as being warm-blooded.

Time to check in again and see how you're doing.

Can you answer this question? Why do scientists use scientific diagrams and tables? Is it, A, to make information look nice, B, to make information look more scientific, or C, to make information clear and easy to understand? Well done.

The answer was C, to make information clear and easy to understand.

Let's get stuck into applying our new knowledge to a practise task.

Complete this Venn diagram with information about mammal and bird life cycles.

It does look a little different from the Venn diagram we just looked at because the shapes there aren't circular, but it is still used in the same way.

There is a part for mammal life cycles and bird life cycles and a section in the middle where the two parts cross over where we can write things that are the same about both.

To help you complete it, think about how many stages there are in each life cycle and the similarities and differences between each stage.

Pause the video here and have a go at completing your Venn diagram.

Okay, let's see how you did.

In my diagram, I have mammals give birth to live young and there are three stages, baby, young, and adult, in the part that is just for mammal life cycles.

On the other side that is just for birds, I have birds lay eggs and there are four stages to a bird life cycle, egg, hatchling, fledgling, and adult.

Then in the middle for both mammals and birds, I have the final stage is adult and they can reproduce at the adult stage.

Did you have anything else in your Venn diagram? You might have included that both mammals and birds look similar when they are babies and adults, just different sizes.

Time for the second part of our lesson today, communicating information about animal life cycles.

Andeep and Jacob have been researching animal life cycles.

Let's see what they found out.

Andeep has found out about tigers.

Here's his research.

Tigers usually have two to four cubs at a time.

They are born helpless but start to leave their den at about eight weeks old and are ready to look after themselves by around two years old.

Tigers are fully grown and able to reproduce between the ages of three and five years old.

A tiger's average lifespan is 10 to 15 years.

Jacob has done his research into swans.

Let's see what he found out about this type of bird.

Swans lay four to six eggs at a time.

They take around 36 days to hatch.

The hatchlings spend between 4 and 12 months with their mothers learning to swim and to fend for themselves.

Swans are able to reproduce when they are around two to four years old.

They can live for 20 to 30 years.

Now that they have all this information, they want to clearly communicate the similarities and differences about these animals' life cycles to their friends.

They have created this list.

Let's take a look at the list and see what it says.

Tigers have between two and four cubs, but swans lay more eggs.

They lay somewhere between four and six eggs at a time.

Tigers need to spend time being looked after by their mothers, and swans do too.

Swans can have offspring when they are around two to four years old.

This is similar but not the same as tigers, who can reproduce from around the ages of three to five years old.

What do you think about the way they have organised their information? You might want to pause the video here to have another look at it and talk about your ideas with a partner.

Remember, scientists like their findings to be as easy to understand and as clear as possible.

What did you think? Let's take a look at the ideas of some other children and see if they thought the same things that you did.

Izzy said, "I think all the similarities should be in one place and all the differences in another." Laura thinks it's quite hard to read.

Their information should be simpler and laid out in a clearer way.

And Jun said he thinks they should have compared each feature, like how many offspring they have, one at a time.

So you can see that none of the children thought there was anything wrong with the information itself.

It was all relevant, but it was not laid out in a very clear and easy-to-compare way.

Did you have any other ideas about their list? Now Andeep and Jacob have put their information into a table.

Let's take a look.

They have a column for key facts on the left and then columns for each of the animals so we can clearly see how each aspect of their life cycles compares.

If we want to know how many offing each animal has at once, we can check that row of the table and quickly see that tigers have two to four cubs, while swans lay four to six eggs.

Andeep thinks it's much easier to compare their animals now.

Do you agree? Let's have another quick check for understanding.

Sofia wants to send some information to her cousins about the life cycle of the frogs and newts in her garden pond.

How could she present this information? You might have more than one idea for this one.

Pause the video here to have a think, and come back when you have an idea or two.

Did you have any ideas for Sofia? Let's take a look at some possibilities.

She could draw life cycle diagrams for each animal.

She could create a Venn diagram comparing the animals.

Or she could put the information about the animals into a table.

Maybe Jun was thinking of one similar to the table we've just looked at.

Is your idea here? Did you think of anything different? Now let's move on to a task.

Use the table to compare the life cycles of a bird and a mammal.

If you want, and you have access to some information about animal life cycles, either in books or online or from previous research you've done, you can find out about your favourite bird and mammal to compare.

Or if you want, you can use the information gathered by Alex and Aisha on the next slide.

If you're going to do your own research, pause the video now to complete this and fill in the table, or hang on here for a moment if you want to use Alex and Aisha's findings.

Alex found out about meerkats.

His research says: Meerkats are able to have babies from the age of around one year.

Each litter of baby meerkats has from two to five babies and the whole pack helps to protect them when they are young.

Meerkats rely on milk from their mother until they are around six to nine weeks old.

Meerkats can live for 5 to 15 years in the wild.

Aisha has carried out her research into the life cycles of birds.

She has found out blackbirds lay three to five eggs at a time in nests made of twigs, grass, and leaves.

The eggs hatch around two weeks later, and the hatchlings are fed by their mother with earthworms and caterpillars.

They become fledglings at two weeks old and are adults ready to reproduce at one year old.

Blackbirds live to be around three years old.

Time to pause the video now and complete your table.

You might find it helpful to keep this slide on display to refer back to as you work.

How did you do? Here are the results for Alex and Aisha.

For how did they reproduce, meerkats give birth to live young, and blackbirds lay eggs.

For the number of offspring at once, meerkats have two to five, while blackbirds have three to five.

For the time each animal is dependent on its mother, for meerkats, it is six to nine weeks, and blackbirds, it is two weeks.

For the age able to reproduce, for meerkats, it is one year old, and for blackbirds, it's also one year old.

The average lifespan for meerkats is 5 to 15 years, whereas for blackbirds, it is only three years.

The animal's diet when young is milk from mother for meerkats, or earthworms and caterpillars for birds.

Of course, your results will be different if you researched your own animals.

You might find it interesting to compare your findings with a friend.

Can you find any similarities between your animals? That brings us to the end of our lesson today.

Let's refresh ourselves on the key learning from this lesson.

There are some similarities and some differences between mammal and bird life cycles.

These can be communicated using scientific diagrams, such as tables and Venn diagrams. Thank you so much for joining me today to learn about the differences and similarities in bird and mammal life cycles.

You did a great job carrying out your research and completing scientific diagrams and tables to communicate your findings clearly.

I look forward to seeing you again next time.