Nature Study: The Plant Kingdom

It’s time for our 12 Months of Montessori Series and today I would like to share with you our study of the Plant Kingdom. Last year we worked on the Animal Kingdom and it was a huge success.  It helped Mavi understand how the animals are grouped according to their characteristics. My plan for the Plant Kingdom is to conduct a brief presentation at home using our Plant Kingdom chart and cards, then do the rest of the work outdoors for a more hands-on experience (that is if the weather permits).

Mother Nature seems to be hearing our pleas for a good weather and she gave us a week of sun and heat!

The first thing here was to introduce the Plant Kingdom Chart.  Similar to the animal kingdom, plants are also classified according to their structure and characteristics.  During the presentation, there’s a lot of questions coming out from Mavi and it is a good thing I have fact cards for him to read out loud and be able to explain the grouping.

You see Mavi is not a passive learner.  He asks gazillions of questions, everytime you answer his question, expect a follow up question, then another and another.  That’s the reason why I always have fact cards because at times, books are not available and I don’t use the internet whenever we have lessons.  But of course, if you have books by all means, use them.  You can always rely on books.  Here’s what we have at home, World of Plants.  We’ve been using this for 3 years now.  I totally love this book, because it is very informative and have lots of beautiful pictures for presentation.

Now with all the concepts learned, we went out to our forest/park and looked for these plants, to observe and investigate.  Note, the helmet is NOT A FASHION STATEMENT. He was wearing it because he was using his scooter.  Mavi is picking up samples so we could take a look at them at home.

 Liverworts and mosses are everywhere in this forest (and in Ireland!)!  This is a tree stump by the way, with sides covered with non-vascular plants!

Mavi checking out a conifer tree. He’s trying to check out the cones, looking for the male and female reproductive parts of this tree.   Mavi - "The leaves are indeed waxy!” A sight to behold!  Perfect place to explore and learn. 

“Mom, ferns!”

And there you go, non-vascular plants again of any kind.

We investigated the stream as well, just to confirm that mosses, liverworts and horsetails really grow in damp places.

The last part was checking out plants that are dicots and monocots.  Daffodils are monocots.  I guess we’ll be back to extend our nature study for dicot and monocot plants!We took samples and brought them home for examination.

And that’s it for an introductory of the plant kingdom.  We’ll do MORE nature study as the weather warms especially in summer vacation. I am planning to spend our summer nature study now that Vito can participate (for sensorial).

The Plant Kingdom file can be purchased from here.

Pin this for later! This post is part of the 12 Months of Montessori Learning which is hosted by Natural Beach Living and The Natural Homeschool.

Amazing blogs involved in the 12 Months of Montessori Learning

Natural Beach Living ~ The Natural Homeschool ~ Living Montessori Now

The Kavanaugh Report ~ Mama’s Happy Hive ~ Study at Home Mama ~ Child Led Life

Every Star Is Different ~ Grace and Green Pastures ~ The Pinay Homeschooler