Sites about Plants

One of our science units is about plants. There are many sites that teach about plants. Below are just a few that I found interesting and child friendly. Click on the picture to go to that site.

The first is just basic information for the child who wants to learn and read a little bit more about plants than we learned in class.



The second is a great tool, but better if you live in Ohio. Considering that our school is in California, I realize that it is less beneficial here, but an interesting site just the same. You choose what way you want to identify a tree (by leaf, fruit or name) and then it will ask you for more details until it leads you to what kind of tree that you are seeing. The problem is that the database contains mainly Ohio native trees, but it has some of ours too. Personally, I think it is interesting to follow through a search just to see what tree you end up with if you choose certain characteristics of the tree.


This next one you don't even have to go to their site, you can play it straight from this website! Your child's goal is to help the plant grow by making sure it has the proper levels of heat and water. If they can successfully keep the plant alive for the 4 weeks of the game, they are given experimental conditions to try as well. Click okay to start.



This next picture is actually from a game found on the first website listed in this post, but I wanted to make it easier to play. It shows different foods, and the child has to identify what part of the plant that each food comes from. I found it a bit challenging on some, but definitely informational.


Below are links to videos of these plants growing. The information on the side of each video is way too complex for 2nd graders to understand, but the videos themselves are a fascinating look at what these plants look like when they are growing.

Corn
Sunflower
Arabidopsis
Sunflower dark & light
Dark-grown Arabidopsis
Sensitive plant
Morning glory

This last site is really great, because it was made by a second grade class to teach other second graders about plants! So it is really at their level, and has work done by 2nd graders too, as you can see from the picture as well.


I will continue to update this page if I find more great resources on Plants in the future.