Home Geography for Primary Grades · Lesson XXXIV · Unit 7: Plants
34. Flowers
Goal: Your child names a few local flowers, notices where each grows, and names the parts of a plant and what each part does.
You'll need
- A walk to see flowers (garden, park, roadside)
- A whole weed with roots, such as a dandelion, pulled with permission
- A magnifying glass
- A geography notebook (any notebook kept just for these lessons) and a pencil
What's in the book
A short talk on flowers, which together cover the earth with beauty. Questions on the flowers that grow nearby, where they grow (wet or dry places), which bloom early or later, which are fragrant, which to grow in a garden, and the parts of a plant (root, stem, leaves, bud, flower). A poem, "In the snowing and the blowing," to learn by heart.
The lesson, step by step
Read the opening
Read the first paragraph aloud. Ask: Why does the book say flowers help together?
A flower walk
Go out together. Ask the book's questions: How many flowers can you name? Which do you know by sight? Do they all grow in the same place? Which like wet places? Which grow where it is dry?
Look and smell, but pick only where it is allowed. Never eat any wild plant.
Parts of a plant
Gently pull up a whole dandelion or other weed, roots and all.
Can you find and name the parts of a plant — root, stem, leaves, bud, flower?
Point to each part and name it. Look at the flower with the magnifying glass.
What each part does
Talk about the uses of each part: the root holds the plant in the ground and drinks up water; the stem holds it up and carries the water; the leaves make food for the plant from sunlight; the bud opens into a leaf or flower; the flower makes the seeds.
The poem
Read the poem.
In the snowing and the blowing,
In the cruel sleet,
Little flowers begin their growing
Far beneath our feet.
Ask: Who are the "Darlings" Spring talks to? What does Spring promise them?
Draw and label
Your child draws the dandelion and labels root, stem, leaves, bud and flower.
Afterwards
The book suggests learning the poem by heart. Try one verse a day. Plant a few flower seeds in a pot or box of earth and care for them.
Tip
Before flower walks, show your child what poison ivy looks like ("leaves of three, let it be") so they know to stay away from it.
Answers to the book's problems
Answers about local flowers vary. The root holds the plant in the ground and takes up water from the soil; the stem holds the plant up and carries water to the leaves; the leaves make food for the plant using sunlight and air; the bud opens into leaves or a flower; the flower makes the seeds. In the poem, Spring is talking to the flowers still under the ground, and promises that winter is going and that soon her birds will sing above them and set them free.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.