Plant Science Activities for Kids offer great STEM lessons for children across all age groups. Your child can learn a lot of Science and Math by simply observing plants.
All these Plant Science Activities can be done in the convenience of your backyard and without much prep. Just the perfect way to keep children beautifully busy and teach hands-on science lessons.
Plant Science Activities for Kids
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Flavoured Salad leaves
The first of these Plant Science activities for kids will surely ignite your child’s inner scientist. Quiz him if he could add or change the taste of salad leaves. The catch is no dressing is allowed.
Take some salad leaves or lettuce. Don’t trim their shoots. Wash them well. Now take two cups of water. Dissolve salt in one cup and sugar in another cup. Place the leaves in both the cups making sure their shoot/stem is under the water.
Taste the leaves from the different cups after 5-6 hours. Do they taste different?
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Are Leaves really green?
Another one of the best plant science activities for kids. Ask them if they really think leaves are green or if leaves have different colours hiding inside them.
Try this simple activity to find the answer. What you need is:
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- Pencil
- Cup
- Tape
- Alcohol
- Water
- Scissors
Step 1: Take a leaf and grind it to make paste.
Step 2: Make a 1:1 solution of water and alcohol in a cup. Mix the leaf paste in the solution.
Step 3: Cut a long strip of kitchen paper towel with scissors.
Step 4: Roll the paper towel around the middle of the pencil so that one end of kitchen paper towel hangs loose.
Step 5: Place the pencil across the cup so that the loose end dips into the solution. Make sure not to dip more than 3-4cms of the paper towel.
Now let the paper towel sit still. After a few hours you will notice different colour pigments on the paper towel strip. What colour pigments do you see?
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Plant Senses
This is fun activity suited for younger children as well. It explores the concept of living things and their characteristics.
It is surprising how plants have such varied characteristics. Help your child see and appreciate these differences. Download the activity sheet and let your child go for a leaf hunt in your own garden.
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Uncover Succulent’s Secret
Are succulents in your garden hiding a secret? Try this fun Plant Science Activity for kids to find out. It is immensely simple and highly enlightening.
Take two sample leaves – one from a succulent and another from any shrub.
Try picking leaves of similar size. Place the leaves on a plate and cover it with a transparent lid.
Now, put this plate in a sunny spot. Observe the leaves for a few days.
Which leaf dried faster? Why? Is the succulent hiding a secret store of water inside it?
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Peas in a Pod
This is a wonderful Plant Science Activity for kids for all age groups. Take some pea pods and ask your little scientist to explore nature’s wonderful packaging.
Ask your child to try tearing the pods. Is it easy? Why do you think peas are packed like this? Do all peas have same number of peas inside them?
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Bring dried Leaf to Life
This is an immensely Fun Plant Science Activity for kids. We bet your children will be amazed and ecstatic with fun!
What you need is a few dried leaves and a bowl of water.
Ask your child to observe the dried leaf. Can they crumble it easily? Now, place the dried leaf in the bowl of water and let it sit for a few hours.
Now, try crumbling it again. What do you see? Is it as easy as before or did you just bring a dried leaf to life again?
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Flower Measurement
Another activity that integrates plant science with mathematics. Ask your children to pick a few fallen flowers and pluck out their petals.
Trace the petal shapes and measure them using a ruler. It is surprising how many different shapes and petal lengths are there right in your garden.
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Leaf Area
This super STEM activity is for slightly older children, 6+years. Trace leaves on a grid paper and have your children count the squares within the boundary.
Considering each square as a unit, the number of squares would give you approximate area of the leaf.
Try with different leaves and compare the areas to see how some leave’s shapes look deceptive!
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Pine Cone Activity
Try this simple Pine cone activity. All you need is a fallen pine cone and bowl of water.
Place the open pine cone in water and just wait to see the magic! It may take 5 to 10 minutes, but totally worth it!
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Flower Pollination
We love this flower pollination activity. Understanding pollination and how bees & birds help in pollination is a bit tricky for children to understand.
Let’s try to make it a breeze for the kids.
All you need is a bag of Cheese Nachos or salted cheese popcorn. Other flavours work as well but this works the best!
Empty the nachos in a bowl and ask your little ones to touch a few using their hands. No licking fingers allowed!
Now, once they had a few bites, ask them to touch a tissue paper. What do you see? Is there magic pollen on the tissue paper too?
Just the way some of the seasonings stick to your hands when you eat with fingers, pollen sticks to bees and birds. And when they fly to other flowers, this pollen falls and gets transferred. Simple pollination!
That’s why we need bees to maintain our ecological balance! They are our natural pollinators.
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