Plants

Plants are living things. They feed, breathe, grow, and make new plants, but they are different from animals.

Plants don't move from place to place like animals do. Plants keep growing, but animals don't grow when they are older.

Scientists think that there are more than 300,000 types of plants in the world!

Scientists put plants into different groups to classify them. They think about how plants grow and how they make new plants.

Seed Plants

New plants grow from the seeds. Many of these plants produce flowers (for example, daisies) and many others produce cones (conifers).

Non-seed Plants

Ferns and mosses are non-seed plants. They don't make seeds, but they make tiny spores. New plants grow from these spores.

Parts of a Plant

Click on the image below and label the plant.

The Life of a Plant

Plants change at different times of their life. They grow and make new plants. When they get old, they die. This is called a life cycle.

Click on the image below to do these activities:

How Plants Feed

Plants make food for themselves by a process called photosyntesis. This word is made of two parts: 'photo', which means light, and 'synthesis', which means building or putting together.

Plants use sunlight to make food from carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O). Plants get carbon dioxide from the air, and water from the soil. During photosynthesis, plants also produce oxygen (O2).

Plants capture the energy in sunlight and store it in the sugars and starch that they make. 

Now watch and sing the 'Photosynthesis' song!

The green parts of a plant are where photosynthesis takes place. A plant's roots, flowers, fruits and seeds cannot make food. They have different functions. Only the green parts have the chemical called chlorophyll. This is a green pigment found mostly in leaves.