Most adults see the dandelion as a weed, but to kids it’s magical.
My girls constantly pick me beautiful dandelion bouquets. They blow the seeds and watch them fly.
In a child’s eye, this sometimes pesky weed is beautiful.
This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Please see my disclosure for more details.
We continued our exploration of nature with the dandelion.We have them in abundance in our backyard, so we didn’t have to go far!
We read The Dandelion Seed by Joseph Anthony and followed along on a dandelion seed’s journey.
After we were done, I sent the girls off to find some dandelions. We were going to look closely at the flower and the seed.
We used our magnifying glasses and Lizzie’s new magnifier to look at the parts of the dandelion. (This is similar to the magnifier we used.)
We tore the petals off the flower and picked the seeds off to look at them closer. We tested our observation skills and learned about flowers.
If you want to try this lesson yourself, you will need nothing more than a magnifying glass.
I also brought out a piece of black paper to help us observe the small parts. You can see the tiny parts of a dandelion much better on the plain, dark background.
Here are some questions to ask while examining dandelions:
How does a dandelion seed fly through the air?
What part of a dandelion flower becomes the seed? Can you see the white fluffy part when you pull the petals from the flower?
What does a seed need to grow?
Why do you think there are so many dandelions?
We used our notebooks and drew all the different things a seed needs to grow. We drew the sun, water, and roots. We also drew a dandelion seed.
Our little notebooks are turning into a fun nature journal.
Lessons learned from the dandelion:
Observation (using our five senses to describe a dandelion flower and seed)
How a seed grows
How a seed flies through the air
Have you ever spent time examining a dandelion?
The following two tabs change content below.
Terri is a writer and mom of two elementary-aged girls. She has a passion for learning and is always looking for ways to make learning fun. You can find her at Better Than Homework where she shares fun learning activities or Creative Family Fun where she shares art, craft, and family fun ideas.
Latest posts by Terri Thompson (see all)
- Halloween Candy Corn Crafts for Kids - September 20, 2017
- Candy Corn Craft: Paper Plate Sculpture - September 19, 2017
- Mini Apple Print Notebook - September 18, 2017
I will have to take out JDaniel's magnifying glass and try this.
Please think about linking this to Read.Explore.Learn.
Thank you so much for linking up! I really love this post!
Dandelions are a great example of seed dispersal!
I also quite like the non scientific idea you can make a wish when you blow them!
Thanks for sharing on Science Sparks.
Kerry 🙂