Nature Study: The Plant Kingdom

Have you ever explored the fascinating world of plants? If not, you're missing out on a truly amazing subject area! One way that we've learned about plants is by visiting our local forest park. During these visits, we take the time to observe and discuss the different types of plants we see there, including trees, flowers, shrubs, and more.

For example, we've talked about why mushrooms are not technically classified as plants. We've also explored the differences between ferns and mosses, which are two unique types of plants that often grow in the forest.

But our learning doesn't stop there! We've also brought the study of plants into our home. We've researched different plant species online and in books, and even started our own small garden to observe how plants grow and develop.

Overall, exploring the plant kingdom has been a fun and educational experience for us. If you haven't delved into this subject area before, we highly recommend giving it a try!

It looks like Mother Nature has finally answered our prayers for good weather, as we have been blessed with a week of bright sunshine and warmth! 

Today, we started our session by introducing the Plant Kingdom Chart. Just like the Animal Kingdom, plants are also classified based on their structure and characteristics. During the presentation, Mavi had a lot of questions, but thankfully, I had fact cards prepared for him to read aloud, which helped him understand the different groupings better.

Mavi is an active learner who asks a lot of questions. Whenever you answer one of his questions, expect more follow-up questions. That's why I always have fact cards on hand. Sometimes books are not available, and I don't use the internet during our lessons.

 

Of course, if you have books available, you should definitely use them for reference. At home, we have a book called 'World of Plants' which we've been using for the past three years. I absolutely love this book because it's very informative and has lots of beautiful pictures that can be used for presentations.

After learning all the necessary concepts, we headed out to the nearby forest or park to observe and investigate the plants. It is worth noting that the helmet worn by one of us was not a fashion statement, but rather a safety measure while using the scooter. Mavi collected some plant samples so that we could examine them more closely at home.

Liverworts and mosses are abundant in this forest and throughout Ireland. The sides of this tree stump are covered with non-vascular plants.

Mavi is investigating a conifer tree in search of its male and female reproductive parts. He notes that the leaves are waxy.

And there you go, any kind of non-vascular plants again.

We investigated the stream to confirm the growth of mosses, liverworts and horsetails in damp places.

The last part was identifying dicot and monocot plants. Daffodils were identified as monocots. We plan to extend our nature study to include dicots.

We collected some samples and brought them back home for examination.

That concludes our introduction to the plant kingdom. We will continue our nature study in the upcoming warm weather, particularly during summer vacation. I am excited to have Vito join us for sensory exploration.

Here's a preview of our Plant Kingdom Learning Resource:

The Plant Kingdom file can be purchased from here:

Also available on TPT.

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This post is part of the 12 Months of Montessori Learning which is hosted by Natural Beach Living and The Natural Homeschool.

Amazing blogs involved in the 12 Months of Montessori Learning

Natural Beach Living ~ The Natural Homeschool ~ Living Montessori Now

The Kavanaugh Report ~ Mama’s Happy Hive ~ Study at Home Mama ~ Child Led Life

Every Star Is Different ~ Grace and Green Pastures ~ The Pinay Homeschooler

Parts of a Flower

Oh I couldn’t resist not having a flower study! Daffodils are just everywhere and knowing me, I just have to grab this opportunity to review our parts of the flower and use our flower puzzle! (My puzzle is from Tower High Learning)

So what to do with all these daffodils that Mavi picked from our backyard? Dissect them!

And here’s how we investigated each part.

I get lots of “ooohs” and “aaahs” from Mavi. I love it!

This is how I do it at home and Mavi loves hands-on! 

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More activities here from my Pinterest board!

FLOWER BOARD Follow Pinay Homeschooler's board Flower Unit on Pinterest.

MEGA Collection of BOTANY Unit Studies

Finally, I compiled all our botany lessons in one post. It’s easier to make it as a reference in the future and to you dear readers as well! These are the activities we have done for the past years, when Mavi was still in preschool.  I hope you find all of these helpful in your own homeschool journey.  Just click any of the links below, to direct you to the specific post.

(In no specific order)

• Learning about flowers. This is THE FIRST TIME we dissected a flower and Mavi had a fabulous time learning about the parts!
• The Tree. Our FIRST LESSON ON TREES and comes with a DIY tree felt puzzle
• Parts of a plant. Mavi was only 2 years old here when we study the different parts of a plant using nomenclature cards.  Was he bored? No!! He had fun looking for the different parts in grandma’s garden.
• Fruits and Vegetables Unit
• The Bean Seed. Identify the parts of a bean seed and observed how they sprout.
• The Plant. Mavi was attending Montessori preschool and brought home his plants.  We review the parts of a plant using a real  one at home. 
• Looking into Trees and Leaves.  We matched leaf shapes, create trees in different seasons and identify the parts of the leaf/tree.
• The Plant Life Cycle (Photosynthesis).  We did a little experiment on how water travels through the plants.
• Tree Shapes. Yes! Trees have different form and shapes.  We worked on this outdoors and identified the shapes of the trees in our yard. How fun!
• The Poinsettia.  Seasonal lesson, especially during Christmas.
• Leaf Shapes.  Montessori-inspired activities. We collected leaves in the park and matched our collection to the leaf shapes nomenclature card.
• Inside of a fruit.  Making fruit prints!
• Life Cycle of an Apple.  Lots of crafting!
• All about flowers [1] and [2].  We usually study flowers in springtime.  Here we looked into the different parts by dissecting a flower, collected flowers in the yard and used it as a paint brush.. and more outdoor flower observation.
• Flower DIY foam puzzle.
• Parts of an apple and tomato.  Yes, we dissected these!

 

You can also visit my Pinterest board for more ideas!

Follow Pinay Homeschooler's board Botany Unit on Pinterest.

Springtime is Flower-time! (part deux)

To continue my previous post on flowers... here are the other activities we tried:

Flower Addition and Equation Matching.  In this activity, I printed out addition cards using flower heads.  The purpose of this activity is to match the addition cards with the proper equation in addition. 

 

Flower Pattern Matching.  I made some tricky patterns and printed it twice for Mavi to match.  This can be also be played as a memory game.

   

Math Addition.  Using the flowers we created in my previous post, we played a game of guess the total number of flowers using the flower equation cards that I made.  I showed him an equation and he had to "stick" the correct number of flowers in the playdough for the answer.

 

Parts of a Plant. We made a model of a plant using the flowers and popsicle sticks. I made him identify the parts. I took out our Parts of a Plant Nomenclature and Booklet material for him to read and check his work.  The plant version you see below is my work.

   

            

You can the Plant Nomenclature and Booklet by clicking the image below.

And here is Mavi's version.  He wrote the labels on his own.

 

Springtime is Flower-time!

Hi everyone!  There are lots of daffodils growing in the yard and Mavi has been constantly picking them up for his "collection".  So to make use of the flowers I pulled out our flower nomenclature cards and told him that he will need to dissect the daffodils to learn about its part.

Since we did this activity a few years ago, he was so excited to do it again.  Kids love to do this!  I know how dreadful it is to learn about the parts of a flower (with all those weird names).  But if you get to this activity with your kids, with a tactile activity, they will definitely learn faster and the retention is much better.

             

As we dissect the daffodil, I would ask him questions like "how does the petals feel like?", "why do you think that some flowers are yellow some are red?".  As we go along, I also discuss the functions of each parts.  He mentioned that his favorite parts are the petals and the stamens because according to him, these makes the flower look beautiful.

           

If you are interested, you can this Parts of the Flower and Definition booklet by clicking the image below:

Afterwhich we read our book How Flowers Grow and look at the pictures of the different kinds of flowers around the world.

I was also inspired to make flowers in popsicle sticks.  I love how these flowers turned out!   You can place them in a vase and stick them using a playdough or clay :)

            

In our case, we found a purpose for these flowers in our math activity which I will talk about in my next post, so stay tuned!

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

Follow Pinay Homeschooler's board Botany Unit on Pinterest.

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