5 Awesome Ways to Learn Parts of Plants for Kids - Julie Naturally

One of the great things about summer is the abundance of plants. It seems like the trees suddenly sprout leaves from one day to the next. But, the first signs of life are our lawns turning green and then, the flowers. Tulips, daffodils, lilies…their bright blooms fill us with joy and hope. Our green friends offer us a unique opportunity to learn parts of plants for kids of all ages. After all, it’s challenging to learn them at any other time of year. In the fall, everything goes to seed and starts going dormant or dies altogether.

One way to teach parts of plants for kids is with library books. Check out my favorite picture books about plants. Books can be super helpful, but not always the most interesting. Pair them up with some printables for some solid teaching and record-keeping, but when they are first learning parts of plants for kids, it’s best to use one of my tips outlined below. Then, they will be more enthusiastic about the books. Let’s get into some fun ways to do it so kids remember and get excited about our green friends.

5 Awesome Ways to Learn Parts of Plants for Kids

Disssection

My favorite way to teach parts of plants for kids is by dissecting large lilies such as these:

These types of flowers make it very easy to see the full stamens and the large central pistil of the flower. It also has all the other parts: leaves, petals, sepals, and a nice fat stem. The large leaves make it easy to see the parallel veins, too. There’s nothing quite like hands-on experiences to teach parts of plants. Plus, this time of year offers a wide selection of different flowers, trees, and plants from which to select good samples.

Riddle Games That Teach Parts of Plants for Kids

Here’s another idea for a hands-on way to teach parts of plants for kids. Gather at least five different plants from different plant families. For example, you could have a lily, an orchid, a potted peppermint, a daisy or sunflower, and a pinecone with a sprig of pine. Then, consider what parts of plants you want your children to identify. For small children, the list would be simple such as flower, leaf, stem, roots, and seeds. For older children, you’d want to include also all the parts of the flower, maybe seed parts, and leaf parts.

Next, think about how you could describe a plant part on a specific sample plant in such a way that it differentiates it from the other plants and plant parts. Then, write your riddles by describing the part. You could use phrases such as “I am ________but not _______.” To make it much easier and simpler, just reduce the number of plants you include. Maybe you only have a lily, a sunflower, and a pinecone. But, it’s important to make it fun puzzle to solve. That not only teaches them the parts of plants, but it also forces them to be very observant.

Memory Aids for Teaching Parts of Plants for Kids

Music

This is another favorite in my house, especially for teaching math facts. But, music is also a great way to teach lots of other things. In fact, I created a little ditty to teach them the days of the week. They still remember it to this day, even though they are adults now. So, it is also a great tool for teaching plant parts, especially if you pair it with some jumping or hopping and images of plants.

Pneumonics

This type of memory aid is often used in science. Ever heard of My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Noodles Under Pizza? Maybe you didn’t learn that exact phrase, but you might recognize it as a way to remember the order of the planets, starting from the sun. The first letter of each word in the phrase is the same first letter as the planet. In college, I came up with a similar pneumonic phrase to learn the order of scientific classification. The order is Kingdom-Phylum-Class-Order-Family-Genus-Species. Because I came up with a memorable phrase, I can still recall this system. Now, I have a little phrase I use when I teach parts of plants for kids. I use it because one of the things that kids get confused about are the male and female parts of the flower. So, I tell them, “Sta-men! This lady’s got a pistil! All the other ladies give her a stigma because she has style and they don’t.” The stamen are the male parts and the pistil is the female part. See?

Games

For active kids, this is the way to go. You can create a plant parts bingo game or a hopscotch style game. When you call out the name of the part, they can place their chip on the correct square or hop to the correct square. You could also make your own board game. Whenever someone lands on a “special” space, they need to draw the plant part named on the space or identify the part indicated on a card that they draw from a pile. You could play a pretend game where little bees are trying to find the right plant part so they can make honey. They can’t land on a leaf or a stem or a root. They can only land on an anther or stigma, where they pick up and drop off pollen.

Try some of these ideas to make learning parts of plants fun for kids! Add in those library books and record your learning with my plant printable bundles.

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