Introduction and Summary
This Is Your Life Cycle written by Heather Lynn Miller and illustrated by Michael Chesworth, is about the life cycle of a dragonfly. The book is set up like a game show with host Bob Beetle. Bob interviews his special guest, Dahlia the Dragonfly as they go through the events in her life beginning as an egg and leading up to the molten stage where she becomes an adult dragonfly and tries to eat the audience!
“We all know how that goes- right, audience? It’s the story of an insect’s life. We hatch, we grow, we mate, we die!”
Curriculum Connections
This is a great book to introduce middle elementary students to the life cycles of insects. Many teachers have used it to introduce key vocabulary such as egg, nymph, molt, and exoskeleton. It describes the series of orderly changes in an insect’s life as they mature and grow (SOL 2.4a). This would be an amusing review for upper elementary students. It has also been suggested to be performed as a theatrical reading.
- This is Your Life Cycle Lesson Plan : This is a lesson plan about insect life cycles geared grades 2-6 using the book This is Your Life Cycle
- Life Cycle Lessons : This is a great website about the life cycle of a dragonfly complete with actual photos of these insects in each stage of life
- Dragonfly Handout: This is a handout that explains the incomplete metamorphesis of a dragonfly
Book: This Is Your Life Cycle
Author: Heather Lynn Miller
Illustrator: Michael Chesworth
Publisher: Clarion Books
Publication Date: 1998
Pages: 32 pages
Grade Range: 2nd-5th grade
ISBN: 0618724850