Botany - week two

Our Botany unit this week focused on classification of plants.
I collected samples of the different types of plants and used them to discuss the classification process.

We then moved onto studying the differences between monocots and dicots (which provided a great excuse to go flower shopping). We cut up a tulip and a rose stem to view the differences in the vascular bundle arrangement,

studied the differences in the leaf shape and vein pattern

and counted the petals,

then placed them in the correct location on our chart.

We also identified a few flowers we found in the garden (please excuse the dandelion - the girls seem to think they are a wonderful flower and I regularly get bunches shoved into a pot as a gift)

We used the monocot/dicot exercise from Montessori for everyone which comes with a great explanation of the differences between monocots and dicots.

and they finished by writing up their notebook pages.