Learning About Plants: Activities and Free Printables for Kids

Thanks to all the warm weather this Spring we have lots of flowers in bloom so we pretended to be
botanist for science time and dissected a flower. This was such a fun hands on learning
activity that allowed Little Tiger (Preschooler, age 4) to work on observation
skills, vocabulary, writing, and labeling (Petals, Stem, Leaves, Roots) using
our Learning About Plants printable (that is available to download for free
towards the end of this post).

This is part of this week’s Creative Preschool theme; Plants & Flowers (more great ideas listed at the end of this post). In case you missed it, our Creative Preschool themes have also included Shapes, Science Experiments, Learn About Food, Fine Motor Skills, Hair & Body, Fairy Tales, Ocean, Maps/Geography.

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Learning About Plants

Supplies:

Shovel

Flowers

Observation tray and tools (magnifying glass, flashlight, tweezers, paper towel, scissors, Q-tips…)

Pen

Scissors

Glue

Tape

Markers/Crayons/Colored Pencils

Learning About Plants printable that is available to download for free at the end of this post

Directions:

For the first part of
this activity we went outside and gathered flowers. I couldn’t get myself to
dig up our bulbs (tulips and daffodils) even in the name of science, so we dug
up some weeds to use for the roots in this activity and used the leaves, stems,
and petals of our tulips and daffodils.

Page 1: Learning and Labeling Flower Picture Activity

Have child cut across the dashed line at the bottom of the page, then cut out the plant labels. Identify each part of the plant and glue the labels on the line. They can also color the page.

When we put our labels on we named the part, figured out the first letter in the word, and Little Tiger would find the label according to the first letter. This is a great first step to reading.

Page 2 & 3: Flower Dissection and Observations

To begin, talk about the word dissection and how it is a methodical way to take something apart to be able to study and observe it. Little Tiger decided this meant we needed to carefully take apart our flower (and not just rip it apart).

Have the child carefully dissect the flower, one part at a time and examine each part (color, texture, smell…) Write observations down as your child makes them on page 3. When they are done with their observations have them glue the part to page 2 and use the labels at the bottom of the page to label the parts. They can also color the left column on page 3.

Page 3 & 4: Observations and Writing

Have child cut along the black dotted lines on page 4 (not the gray lines), and then write one label (Petals, Stem, Leaves, and Roots) on each line. You can use a light colored marker or pencil to write the word first so they can trace it, or they can write the words independently. Tape each label to the correct row on page 3 (making a flap that covers the observation section). The gray area is for the tape.

I printed out page #4 twice. On the first page I wrote the words. I gave Little Tiger the option of tracing the words or writing it herself and she choose to write it herself on the second page. We haven’t written on lines very often because the restrictiveness of them would often cause her frustration, this time around she kept at it. I didn’t point out any differences or make any corrections with the letters she wrote unless she asked. There will always be time to learn the correct direction of the letter “S”, or how the cross on the letter t should be short… No sense in making her feel bad for trying. She was proud of her work, and I was proud of her effort!