Plants are the oldest and largest form of life on Earth(trees). Ask kids if they eat leaves, roots, stem, or seeds. You will be surprised at their answers. Yes, we eat all plants parts. There are six basic parts to a plant: root, stem, leaf, flower, fruit, and seed. Teach the song about plant parts. Seeds feed the world. Do you eat grass? Grains such as corn, rice, cereals, breads, and pasta are made from the seeds of grasses. Seeds travel on the wind, through a stomach, on animals or across the ocean and each kind of plant seed looks differently. Flowers make the seeds. Use the felt board to show the parts of a flower: sepals, petals, Stamen, pistil, sticky stigma, pollen, ovules. When a seed gets the right amount of water and sunshine and if it is in the right place, the seed will germinate and sprout and a new plant begins to grow. Plants need water, soil, and sunshine to grow. Ask them if they see plants going to the grocery for food. Leaves are the food factories of plants and through a process called photosynthesis they turn sunlight into the sugar glucose. Plants make their own food! On the bottom side of leaves their are the stoma that look like little lips. These open and close allowing the plant to breathe.
Materials: hand drum for music, paper and pencils for drawing the parts of a flower. Samples of many different kinds of seeds for them to examine. lima beans, paper towels, baggies, Felt board of parts of a flower. Pots of soil and seeds.
Activities: Learn song about the parts of a plant and “I am a Sprout”. Examine different kinds of seeds. Make a felt board flower showing the parts or a felt board plant showing the parts of a plant. You can also draw it on a wipe off board. Dissect flowers. Wrap 3 lima beans in a wet paper towel and seal in a plastic snack bag to germinate. Plant some seeds in seed pots.
Happy faces in the cross-section of a blade of grass. Aren’t natures designs amazing!
Such Beautiful Stems
Phototropism
Leaves unfolding
