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!

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Botany Unit: Trees and Leaves

Last week's activities. Sorry if I have to flood this post with pictures as I am short on words.

Highly Recommended Montessori Materials

Another feature for 12 Months of Montessori series! For November, I’m sharing our favorite Montessori materials that my kids love and have been using for years.  So to those who are asking me on what Montessori materials to invest in, here are my recommendations:

Plants versus Animals Sorting Activity

I am so thankful for The Helpful Garden for providing us this printable (saved me a lot of time!).  Of all the plant and animal activities that we have done in the past, I have forgotten this one basic activity for Montessori botany and zoology: identifying plant and animals. 

Educational Puzzles for Preschoolers

Because I’m often asked of the puzzles we use at home, I’m sharing what we have here to give you an idea on what my preschooler loves.   Some of these puzzles are way too advanced for Vito, so we usually start working the puzzles together.  But as he gets used to the material, he would at times insist on working it on his own and occasionally would ask for assistance. 

*We own all of the puzzles in the pictures below. 

Montessori Botany Learning Materials

Last month, both of my sons fell ill and were bedridden for almost a week. During that time, I had plenty of free time during the day, but was busy taking care of Vito at night. To make the most of my available free time, I decided to enhance the Montessori botany cards and booklets that Vito will be utilizing this spring. I personally handcrafted some of these materials, and I'm proud of the results. If you're interested, feel free to come take a look!

Montessori Inspired Parts of a Plant

It always excites me to introduce new things to Vito.  Our recent activity is learning about plants, specifically in this post, the parts of a plant.  I love doing plant study with the boys.  I’ve been doing this with Mavi since he was 2 years old, and I love doing it all over again with Vito!  Printed materials used in the activities were all homemade, and some were used during Mavi’s preschool days.   This is Vito’s second year of plant study, and you can read related studies here:

• Introducing plants to toddlers
• Collection of botany lessons for preschoolers
• Bean seed study
• How plants grow

Botany Unit: Leaf Shapes

Mavi and I have been collecting leaves to use for our leaf/leaves study.  I purchased this Botany Cabinet Shapes cards from Montessori Print Shop to introduce the different leaf shapes.

Botany Unit: The Plant

Last week's activity:  The Plant  (my son is obsessed with Legos and he made a Lego plant similar to our cards LOL)

This is how I store my nomenclature cards.  Nothing fancy, just a green cardstock (Green for Botany)  and divided it into three sections.  I measured the width and height of the cards to make sure they fit well in each pocket.

First we read books. I started discussing how does a plant grow, what does it do and it's essential role on our environment.

Then I took out our materials.  This sunflower plant is from his school.  It's a perfect model for our study.

Next thing, we talk about the different parts of the plant.  As seen here, he's working on the parts of the plant nomenclature cards.

We also have blank labeling card worksheets.  He colors each part of the plant and writes the label/s on it.  He loved this!

                

Because I run out of felt, I wasn't able to prepare a poor man's version of a plant puzzle.  So instead I have him make a plant out of colored papers.  He did most of the work here.  All I did was to draw the outlines on the paper and assist him in cutting the parts.

  This is how it looks like when he was done.  I read the booklet to define each parts as he formed his plant.

 

If you may ask, all materials seen here (nomenclature, worksheet and booklet) are all in one file (click the  picture for the link).

 

And because he can't get enough of what he has learned, he collected these on our way home from school. 

Next post is all about photosynthesis and plant life cycle.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Spring Carnival

Study of Plants and Nature and {Learn & Play Link Up}

We're having plant and tree activities next month so I'm featuring these amazing posts for inspiration!

Tree Shapes Outdoor Activity (Worksheet and Printable)

Because of the wonderful weather, I decided to throw a Botany Unit for this month.  We've got plenty of trees around the estate, all with different shapes so I was thinking that we should jump-start our Botany lessons with Tree Shapes.

So I made him a learning material that would help us identify the tree shapes in our estate... and hopefully use it this weekend as we visit the park.  This is an activity sheet that is included in the printable material, Tree Shapes.  We've also brought along our green do-a-dot marker with our worksheet.

[Tried and Tested] Tower High Learning

I came across Tower High Learning through random search in the internet for affordable Montessori puzzles.  I am so happy that I found another shop in the UK that sells Montessori materials.  As I skim through their online shop, I’m surprised that they offer a waay more affordable price than any shop I’ve encountered!  Excitedly, I contacted their costumer service for inquiries and they responded promptly to all my queries.  Marie, who runs the business is very friendly and easy to talk to!  So without hesitation I purchased a few puzzles for Vito and Mavi to work on this year. 

And guess what? They arrived after 2 days!! How cool is that??  To think that I just paid for regular shipping. Amazing isn’t it?

And yes, nothing beats the smell of new Montessori materials, waiting to be opened!

My botany puzzles!! I regret not getting the seed and roots!

  My Zoology puzzles:  bird, turtle and frog.  Must save for the the fish and butterfly.

I purchased this version of which there’s a skeleton presentation on the board of the puzzle.

 

And here’s my beautiful beautiful Asia Continent Map puzzle. Shining, shimmering… splendid!

And yes all those little tiny pieces all sits well on its board. Love it!  Wishlist: must get the control map next time!

Ahhh… oh how I love the puzzles! They’re on the lower price range but they were more than perfect! Flat, and all the pieces fitted well.

I have to start my “wishlist” for Christmas.  I can’t wait till  my next purchase when my funds are enough.

So don’t forget to checkout Tower High Learning if you are in Europe and looking for affordable Montessori materials.

 

**This is not a paid post or review.  Just wanted to share this amazing shop that sells affordable Montessori materials to Moms out there that have tight budget like me!

Montessori Inspired Activities for Earth Science

I am so excited to share our activity trays for Earth Day! This is in line with our 12 Months More of Montessori Series wherein we are focusing on Earth Science.  In this post, I gathered a few topics related to Earth Science, assembled them into tray activities that’s suitable for preschoolers from ages 3 years and older.  Hope you enjoy our activities for the coming weeks!

Botany Unit: Plant Life Cycle and Photosynthesis

PHOTOSYNTHESIS

To wrap up our Plant Study, we looked into the process of Photosynthesis.  We talked about the source of light, the water and the carbon dioxide that the plant needed to produce oxygen.

I printed a few worksheets from Education.com for him to work on.      

Here's a helpful animation about Photosynthesis.

LIFE CYCLE OF A PLANT

Another worksheet from Education.com, here ordering the stages of a plant's life.

               

 EXPERIMENT

To see how the fluids move inside the plant, we did a little experiment.  We put some stalks of celery into a glass of water containing a blue food coloring.

              

The results as of Day 1.  The leaves and the tip of the stalks have blue spots and the leaves turned into blue.  That's because the blue water has been transported around the plants :)  I love how visible the blue pigments are in the leaves!  (You can click the pictures for a much bigger image)

              

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Spring Carnival

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.

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Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!
Natural Homeschool's Montessori Linky