Enjoy teaching plants with these hands-on activities, video links, and freebies. Your third, fourth, and fifth grade students will love it (and so will you)!
How to Enjoy Teaching Plants
Get down and dirty with plant parts! Try these activities:
To simulate plant roots, roll three pieces of absorbent paper towel. Tape center. Do not cut the first paper towel. This “plant” has a taproot. Cut the bottom half of the second towel in strips. This “plant” has fibrous roots. Cut the bottom half off of the third towel. This “plant” has no roots.
Place each “plant” in pebbles, sand, rice, or dirt. Pour colored water into cup and see what happens! Kids quickly learn that roots absorb water for the plant and anchor it.
Place celery (or a carnation) and colored water. This demonstrates the role of the stem beautifully!
Try this clever activity to demonstrate the role of water pressure. Choose food coloring in two primary colors. Place three cups side-by-side. Add colored water to the cups on the left and right. Leave the cup in the middle empty. Drape two sheets of absorbent paper towel from each cup with water. Wait and watch.
The water flows through the paper towel to the empty cup – – – but only until all three cups have the same amount of water. Cool!
What should kids do with seeds? Grow them, of course! You can set up a germination bulletin board and/or let kids tape their own baggie gardens to their desks. Just buy a bag of beans, some baggies (not zipper), and a roll of paper towels at the grocery store. You’re ready to germinate!
Dissecting flowers is fun and easy. Pick up a bunch of flowers with evident reproductive parts. Download the lab sheet below and get started. No knives are needed. Students can use the tip of a straight pin or tack to cut the plant parts.
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I am so mesmerized by time-lapse videos of germinating seeds. Try these!
The exquisite beauty of pollination has been captured by these photographers:
- The Beauty of Pollination – Moving Art by Louie Schwarzberg (4 minutes)
- Pear Flower to Fruit by Neil Bromhall (1 minute)
Check out this seed dispersal video (13 minutes), from Naturalist Outreach at Cornell University, explains how seeds are dispersed by wind, animal, and fire.
One of my students’ favorite plant activities is dissecting a flower. Enjoy this freebie! Click here to download it.
The Complete Unit
Exploring Plant Parts is available in my Teachers pay Teachers store. This complete unit includes 32 pages of hands-on activities, visuals to aid in lab set-up, student sheets, review, a test, and more.
I post new ideas, activities, and free downloads every week. Click here for an index (and to see what’s coming soon!)
Enjoy teaching plants!