Writing Activities that Your Kids can do This Summer Using Flowers
Flowers are a natural part of the summer landscape. They are pretty with their beautiful petals and sweet fragrances. But, did you know that they could be used to help lessen the learning gap for your kids this summer?
Why are Flowers Important
Flowers, like trees, help to remove carbon dioxide from the air. During the process of photosynthesis, flowers take the carbon dioxide from the air to help make their food. Oxygen is a by-product of that process. Oxygen is excreted through their leaves into the atmosphere where humans and other animals breath it in. Plants need carbon dioxide to survive, and humans need oxygen to live. This is a called a symbiotic relationship, a mutually beneficial relationship between two organisms.
How to Use Flowers to Incorporate Learning
Summer flowers can be used to lessen the summer learning gap by any parent with basic plant knowledge. Writing an emphasis on writing, flowers can be used to:
- Explain the parts of a paragraph
- Elaborate on how to use the five senses in writing
- Provide examples for expository, descriptive, creative, and narrative writing.
- Provide a examples of how to compare and contrast two or more items
- Provide a topic for research projects
- To peek an interest in reading and science
- Introduce pollinators
How to Use the Parts of a Flower to Teach Writing
Flowers have 4 basic parts: roots, stem, leaves, and the actual bloom. The parts of a flower can be used to help teach writing in the same way that the “hamburger” analogy is. The hamburger is split into parts and used to explain the various parts of a good paragraph. A flower can be broken down into the 4 simple parts and used to explain the parts of a paragraph in the same way.
The flower bloom is the most noticed part of the flower. It’s bright and pretty colors attract.
In reference to writing, the flower bloom is beginning of the paragraph or essay. Explain to your children that the beginning of their paragraph is a vital part of their writing.
The beginning or introduction of their paragraph should contain an “attention-getter”. That means that it should instantly capture the reader’s attention and prompt them to read more of the paragraph or essay. This is the same way the blossom of the flower is the “attention-getter”. It should introduce the topic sentence.
The next part of the flower is the stem. The stem provides support, and it transports nutrients from the soil up throughout the rest of the plant.
The flower stem is equivalent to the “body” of the essay or the key part of the paragraph. The body of the essay provides all of the main information about the topic being written about. Explain to your children that this part of the essay or paragraph should be their main focus. Like the stem helps to hold up the flower, the body paragraph provides the main support to the introductory paragraph.
The leaves take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the atmosphere in an exchange of gases. They also help to protect the flower from water loss.
The leaves can be described as the supporting details for their writing. A flower may have a lot of leaves or only a few. However, explain to your children that they should use as many supporting details as possible without compromising the quality of the paragraph or essay.
The root is the “anchor” of the flower. It holds the plant in place.
Explain to your children that their writing needs a firm foundation. That’s what the root provides for the plant, and that’s what their conclusionary sentence or paragraph should do. It should thoroughly close out the subject. Encourage your children to finish strong. Their conclusion should be as good as or almost as good as their introduction.
Sensory Writing Using Flowers
Use flowers to get your kids to use their five senses in their writing. Our five senses include: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
You can start by asking your children what they notice first about the flower. The usual answer is going to be the pretty blossom. Explain to them that give you some more details about the flower. Here are some questions you can ask:
- What color is the bloom?
- How tall is the flower?
- What color is the stem?
- Does the flower have thorns?
- They can talk about how the flowers.
You can then explain to them that what they did was describe the flower using their sense of sight. Next, they can write each answer to the question in a sentence. That sense can then be transformed into a description paragraph.
Next, you can move on to the sense of smell. Questions to use include:
- How does this flower smell?
- Does it have a strong smell?
- Does it have a sweet smell?
- Do you like the way the flower smells? Tell me why you do/do not like the smell.
You probably won’t be able to incorporate your senses of taste or hearing into your flower-focused writing, but you shouldn’t have any problem getting your children to use their sense of touch to do descriptive writing.
If you are sure that the flower is not a toxic one, you can let your child touch the flower. Questions that you might want to ask are:
- How does this flower feel?
- Does it feel soft?
- Does the flower feel tough?
- What else feels this way?
Flowers can also be used to get your kids to do comparing and contrasting. What you will want to do is gather at least two different flowers and place them side by side. Ask your child the following questions:
- How are these two flowers alike?
- How are these two flowers different?
- Which flower is taller?
- What color are the flowers?
- What the difference between annuals and perennials? (This is a question for older kids.)
You may want to want to use a graphic organizer. A Venn Diagram is one of the best writing graphic organizers for doing comparing and contrasting.
Flowers can lead into narrative. Flowers can trigger memories. Ideas to consider:
- You can have them write about a particular flower and how they associated with a memory.
- You could mention holidays where flowers are usually center stage. Those holidays could include Valentine’s day, Mother’s Day, and Memorial Day. They may even associate flowers with the death of a loved one, so be sure to avoid negative triggers.
For creative writing activities, you can have your child…
- Create a story using the flower as the main character.
- Write a story with flowers in the setting.
Expository paragraphs or essays can be composed using flowers. You and your children can read books about flowers or do research on them. The following questions can be considered when composing those paragraphs or essays.
- What are pollinators?
- How do flowers reproduce?
- Why are flowers important to our food supply?
- Why are flowers an important part of our environment?
- What type of soil does this flower grow best in?
- How much sunlight does this flower need?
Summer flowers can be used to get your kids writing this summer and to help lessen the learning gap. The activities mentioned can be spread out across the summer, or they can be used as long as the gorgeous, summer flowers are in bloom.
*Summer Learning Loss Playlist
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