Hobbies And Interests
Matching Pairs
Gather together plants that the children have been learning about. Separate leaves from their plants or flowers and set them apart. Mark each leaf with a different number and each plant or flower with a different letter. Get the children to match the correct leaf with the correct plant or flower, and see which child matches them all correctly in the quickest time.
Local Environment
When teaching about native species of plants, take the kids outdoors and have them gather up as many samples of leaves or flowers from these plants as they can find. Provide them with a pictorial card specifying exactly what it is they are looking for. You do not want them picking samples from rare or poisonous plants.
Amateur Gardener
While this game will take some weeks to, quite literally, come to fruition, kids can get a great deal of satisfaction from growing their own plants. Choose something quick growing such as mustard and cress, sunflowers or tomatoes. As time goes on, discuss different stages of plant growth. You can have a competition to see which tomato plant yields the most fruit or which sunflower grows the tallest.
Scavenger Hunt
Give the kids a list of plant-related objects and a brown paper bag in which to collect them. Give them a set period of time in which to find as many items as possible, such as a flower bud, a fuzzy leaf, a prickly leaf, a nut, a sweet smelling flower and the virtually impossible to find four-leafed clover.
Guess What?
Ask each child to bring in a flower, leaf or plant in a bag, so that nobody can see what it is. The kids then get to guess what each specimen is, by asking the child that brought it in questions to which he can only answer "yes" or "no."