Plants and their jobs

These plant profile cards can be used to familiarise learners with different plants, and how they can be useful for people and nature. Each card features a name and image of a plant, as well as a fun fact or two! You can also download the set of blank cards and create your own plant profiles for your group to explore. Once familiar with the plants, they can be used to think about what types of plants learners might like to grow in their outdoor space.

Making decisions

< 30 minutes

EYFS

KS1

Preparation

What you need

Plant cards – one set per pair or group, depending on use/activity
Optional: examples of real plants for learners to look at, touch and smell

If you’d like to create your own plant cards using the blank set, these can be edited by opening the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader and adding images and text into the boxes. Landscape, rather than portrait images will work best.

The downloadable Activity Guide below also includes more information on each of the plants, and a key to the symbols used on each card.

Location

Indoors or outdoors

Useful guidance

Resources

Plants and their jobs Activity Guide.pdf 1.14 MB

Plant cards.pdf 3.62 MB

Blank plant cards editable.pdf 37.91 KB

Step by step

Warm up: Print out two copies of the cards and play a game of memory or ‘snap!’ as a warm up or introduction. To play memory, lay the cards out face down and have learners take it in turns to turn over one card and then another – the aim is to remember the placement of the cards and find a matching pair. Alternatively, ‘snap!’ can also be played in a pair with each learner having one set of cards. For younger learners, an adult can read the name and facts aloud when a pair is found.
Sorting and grouping: As a whole group or in smaller groups, can learners explore the cards to notice similarities and differences between the plants? After taking some time to get to know the cards, ask learners to choose how they would group them: e.g. colourful flowers, smelly plants, plants humans can eat, plants good for wildlife...
What are these plants good for? Can learners think about ways these plants are helpful for nature and/or people? This could be facilitated as a whole group discussion by choosing a plant card, for example, marigold, and asking why wildlife might like it, and why people might like it?

Reflection

'What would we like to grow?' Once familiar with the cards, learners can use them to start thinking about what they might like to grow in their space. Open a discussion with the group to select their favourite(s) and why they like them. Where could we grow them? You could take learners outside and walk around the site with the cards, or pin them to a map of the space.

Curriculum links

This activity can be used to support curriculum knowledge and skill development in understanding the world, communication and language and science, alongside enhancing nature education, with age and skill appropriate adaptations.

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