Flower Families

$18.00

Understanding how to identify flower families opens up a new world of observation in nature study. You’ll love how easy it is to teach these identification and comparison skills in this fun curriculum! 

Description

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 No Sweat Nature Study 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

What is No Sweat Nature Study?

Have you ever wished for a nature study that simply didn’t require any outdoor time?

No packing of bags full of nature journals and sunblock.

No half-days spent driving to and from the nature trails.

No whining about the temperature that’s either too hot or too cold.

Well, it’s here. 

The No Sweat Nature Study series allows you to teach nature-based lessons from the comfort of your home or classroom using an amazing variety of fresh resources that will make a deep scientific impact on your students.

Through the use of kid-friendly, hand-selected videos, websites, online images, and books, you can teach nature study topics to multiple ages in short bursts of time.

Wait. Some of you are die-hard fans of “real” nature study – the outdoor kind – and you’re wondering how this curriculum could be legit, aren’t you?

Trust me when I say I am all for getting outdoors for real-life nature study. In fact, nature walks have been a weekly habit around our house for years and years now – and they’ve made a huge difference in our homeschool.

Some people just don’t like getting outside, though. Others struggle with time, energy, health, or climate issues. Some are attempting to teach nature study in co-ops or classrooms without options to get outdoors frequently.

I want everyone to have the opportunity to study in-depth nature topics, and this curriculum is just about as close to real life nature walks as you can get without going outside.

But, don’t stop reading just yet my “real” nature study friend. YOU can benefit from this curriculum, too! It’s a great way to add some depth and understanding to things you’re already discovering in the field during your nature walks.

Whether your a fan of nature walks or not, you’ll find this series to provide you with a unique method to experience nature study!

  • You get to choose exactly how much and what you study as you work through eight lessons.
  • The activities are leveled for difficulty, while allowing you the opportunity to do more or less depending on the interests and abilities of your students.
  • Whether you do a little or a lot from each lesson, rest assured that serious nature-based science will be learned.

This curriculum is perfect to add to a morning time routine. It’s also perfect to use once-a-week as a supplement to your regular science curriculum. If you choose to do all the lessons and really dig deep within each, you could use No Sweat Nature Study as your complete science curriculum for whichever topics you choose. How you choose to use it is really up to you!

Written with 1st-8th graders in mind, the topics are really very in-depth. Using kid-size terminology and resources, I think you’ll be surprised and excited about how much scientific information your students are able to absorb!

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