Spring is a great time to start introducing lots of botany studies. I am looking forward to being able to get ours properly underway, and here are some of the ideas and resources I have been using or plan to.
Whole and Half Fruits
We have been looking at whole and half fruits, which covers so many bases - it is a matching activity of sorts, but also something we have used to show that things go together (related objects, except these are the same object, just its half!), great for healthy eating, practical life if you get the fruit and cut it in half, sensorial as you can do a tasting game with the fruit. With older children, it is great to introduce halves, parts of the fruit, seeds in a fruit, and where the fruit is grown.
Here is a great download we have been using for this from Montessori for Everyone.
Plants need light
I have done this experiment a few times with children and they love it. All you need is a tiny flower pot, some compost, a bean, a shoebox, some extra cardboard, scissors and sellotape. And you basically need to do this inside your box, and let the seed grow. I watered it every few days, because seeds need water too!
We will be starting this experiment soon!
Start a kitchen garden!
I support a charity called Send a Cow, and one of the things they do is teach community groups in Africa how to grow food and compost at the same time using a kitchen, or keyhole garden.
I have been wanting one of these for a few years now, and hopefully this year we will be able to have one. It works on the basis of having a composting basket in the centre of a growing bed, and all the nutrients can percolate into the surrounding soil. You just top up the compost basket with your compostable food waste!
Watch this video from Send A Cow to see how this works!
Read some great books
A Seed is Sleepy - This is the book we have read today. It is a lovely book about seeds, and I highly recommend it. If you click on the book, it will take you to Amazon so you can buy it (this is an affiliate link)!
Grow some sunflowers!
Growing sunflowers is so much fun! They grow so high, and they can be measured by older children too! Other plants are great to grow, but sunflowers are definitely the most fun! There are also all kinds of experiments you can do when growing plants - take out the things they need - air, light, heat, water, etc and see what happens!
Montessori Botany Resources
The Pinay Homeschooler recently posted a mega collection of botany materials here.
Montessori in Bloom show how you can dissect a flower with 3-6 year olds here.
Carrots are Orange have a good post about parts of a flower here.
The Helpful Garden has some great printables for botany here.
Elementary Observations also recently had a great round up of Botany posts on the internet here.
Montessori Edible Garden - Lessons for Lower Elementary and Upper Elementary
If you are in the UK or Europe, you can get your Botany materials from Tower High Learning.
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