CoachThe life cycle of a living thing is the row of stages its life goes through:
- it is born — the beginning;
- it is young — it grows and changes fast;
- it is an adult — fully grown; adults can have young of their own;
- it grows old, and at the end it dies.
Examples
Example 7.2 (Three lives, same road)
A kitten is born, plays and grows into a cat, who may have kittens herself, and grows old. A cherry seed sprouts, the young tree grows taller for years, the adult tree makes blossom and cherries, and after many tens of years it dies. And you: baby, child, then one day a grown-up. Kitten, cherry tree, child — the same four stages.
Example 7.5 (The photograph test)
On Grandpa’s old photographs you can follow one person through every stage: baby, schoolchild, young man, father, grandfather. Same person, changing body. Photographs are little time machines for watching a life cycle.
Example 7.8 (The old apple tree)
The bent old apple tree at the end of the garden gives fewer apples each year — it is in its old age. But its apples have pips, and one pip, planted, is already a young apple tree beginning the road. When the old tree dies, apple trees will not be gone: its young carry on.