Home Geography for Primary Grades · Lesson XXXV · Unit 7: Plants
35. What plants need to grow
Goal: Your child knows that plants need warmth and water to grow, and uses that to explain why deserts, cold places and warm, rainy places have different plants.
You'll need
- Four small cups of soil and a few fast seeds (beans, peas or grass seed)
- A label for each cup
- A geography notebook (any notebook kept just for these lessons) and a pencil
What's in the book
Plants do not grow in winter or in deserts. The lesson asks what two things plants need (heat and rain), when they get them, what the trees and grass are like where there is much heat and rain, and where there is rain but little heat. It closes with ways to learn (seeing, asking, reading) and a list of names to write.
The lesson, step by step
Two puzzles
Ask the book's opening questions: Why don't plants grow in winter? Why don't plants grow in deserts?
Two things
Ask: So what two things do plants need to grow? (warmth and water) When in the year do they get both? (spring and summer)
Test it
Plant seeds in four cups and label them: warm and watered (sunny window, water every day); warm and dry (sunny window, no water); cold and watered (fridge, water every day); cold and dry (fridge, no water). Check them every day for a week.
Thinking about the world
Ask: If a country has a great deal of heat and rain, what can we be sure of about its trees and grass and flowers? (they grow big and thick, like a jungle) If it has rain but little heat? (trees are small and slow-growing)
Ways to learn
Read the last part aloud.
You may get information about plants and things by seeing for yourself, by asking others, and by reading books.
Ask: Which way are we using with the seed cups?
Write the lists
The book asks the child to write the names of grains, vegetables, two clothing plants, furniture woods and building woods. Your child writes two or three of each, reviewing Lessons XXIX to XXXIII.
Afterwards
Keep checking the seed cups and draw them on day 3 and day 7.
Tip
What we know now: plants also need light and air, and good soil helps. The seeds in the fridge get neither warmth nor light, which is why they do worst.
Answers to the book's problems
Plants do not grow in winter because it is too cold; they do not grow in deserts because there is too little water. The two things plants need are heat (warmth) and moisture (rain); they get both in spring and summer. Where there is much heat and rain, the trees, grass and flowers grow tall, thick and green. Where there is rain but little heat, trees are small and grow slowly. Lists: grains, wheat, corn, oats, rice; vegetables, potatoes, carrots, peas, cabbage; clothing plants, cotton and flax; furniture woods, oak, walnut, maple, cherry; building woods, pine, spruce, oak.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.