Flower Families

Did you know that flowers have families? It might sound strange, but it’s true! In fact, there are more than 400 flower families in the world! Kind of like you and I are related to other people, flowering plants are related to other plants.

At first glance, you might not think that sunflowers and dandelions have a lot in common, but a closer look will reveal plenty of similarities. Those similarities are your first clue that sunflowers and dandelions just might be related. Surprisingly, sunflowers and dandelions are part of a family that includes more than 32,000 species! 

When I first learned about flower families, it opened up an entirely new world of nature study to me. Where each stunning flower had once been a singular beauty to behold, I now had fresh eyes to notice even more details. Low and behold, I found myself able to use that keen eye to compare flowers and soon could pretty easily determine if one type of flower was in the same family as another. It’s so much fun to have that knowledge (and it’s a great higher-order thinking skill to make those comparisons)!

In this exciting study, your children will learn to look at flowers – and all the other parts of flowering plants – with a discerning eye. This type of observation will help them to see intricate details (that may go unnoticed otherwise) and make connections between types of plants. The scrupulous observation will help your children understand the entire plant life cycle, too.

This multi-age curriculum for 1st-8th graders uses a wide array of media and experiences to teach students about the following topics:

• plant classification (taxonomy)
• the reason for a flower
• parts of a flower
• leaf structure and arrangement
• herbaceous vs. woody plants
• monocots vs. dicots
• aster family
• mint family
• parsley family
• mustard family
• rose family

You’ll notice that, out of more than 400, only five flower families are discussed. These five families include many, many of the most common plants, so your students should be familiar with many of them already. Additionally, children who are interested in learning about other flower families will be well-equipped to discover more on their own.

Flower Families is part of the Nature Study Made Easy curriculum series, which means you don’t have to take even one nature walk outdoors if you don’t want to. Learning deep observation and comparison skills to classify flower families is certainly possible without nature walks. However, be warned that the newfound knowledge may just have your children begging to go outside. 🙂

• 39 pages
• Digital curriculum
• Appropriate for black and white printing
• Printing is not necessary
• Content suitable for charter schools