Plants

Children love to explore living things, including plants. Although plants don’t move or interact the same way animals do, they can still ignite your child’s curiosity — especially when you join in carefully observing the tiny grasses, tall trees and colorful flowers in the world around you. The types of plants you and your child investigate will depend on your location and whether you live in a rural, suburban or urban area — but plants are everywhere. Look for flowering plants like maple trees, oak trees, apple trees, palms, cacti, roses, sunflowers, squash, tomatoes and grasses as well as nonflowering plants like pine, spruce and fir trees. And don’t forget weeds! Weeds are not specific plants but simply any plants a gardener doesn’t want. Some examples include buttercups, daisies, dandelions, violets, chickweed, crabgrass, knotweed, wild carrot and ivy. The wonderful thing about weeds is that nobody will mind if you and your child dig them up! Eight-year-olds are building their understanding of the needs of plants and how a plant’s parts help it survive and reproduce. For example, they recognize that new plants can grow from bulbs and cuttings as well as from seeds. They are increasingly aware that plants and animals depend on each other and on particular features of their habitat to survive. They have an increasing appreciation for the diversity and variation in the plant world. As you and your child explore, talk together about your observations and your ideas about how plants grow, what they need and how the environment meets their needs. Outdoors, look and listen for the insects, birds and other animals that make their homes in, on and around plants. Although very few plants are dangerous, some could make your child sick. Make sure to avoid these plants.