As part of our leaves unit, I wanted my kids to become familiar with both leaf parts and leaf shapes. To be honest, I *myself* needed to become familiar with leaf parts and leaf shapes as well. But the joy of homeschooling is that I get to learn right alongside my kids!
In this post I’m sharing a bit of what we did to accomplish these goals, and I’ve provided links to lots of great printable resources for learning about leaves and learning with leaves.
Note: For more leaf activities, see my Botany Unit Study page.
Learning the parts of a leaf
One activity we did to learn about the parts of a leaf was the Leaf Parts printable from A Teaching Mommy’s Leaves Unit pack. The kids cut and paste the names of the leaf parts onto the diagram. There was some serious vocabulary development going on while we did this activity!
Here are some other printables to help your children learn the parts of a leaf:
- Parts of a Leaf worksheet from Twisty Noodle
- Parts of the Leaf nomenclature cards from The Helpful Garden
- Parts of a Leaf diagram from The Joyful Learning on Teachers Pay Teachers
- Leaf nomenclature book from Montessori Print Shop
- Parts of a Leaf cards from ETC Montessori
- Parts of a Leaf nomenclature cards from Montessori for Everyone
- Parts of a Leaf nomenclature cards from Montessori Helper
Learning about leaf shapes
I printed out some leaf shapes 3-part cards from Montessori Helper (sorry I can’t find a link to the exact set of printables we used). We laid them out on a small rug and discussed the different shapes of the leaves.
I worked with the kids to really hone in on the images they were seeing and to describe them as richly as possible. We talked about leaves being thin vs. wide, tall vs. short, round vs. pointy vs. heart-shaped, jagged vs. smooth, etc.
Then I brought in a pile of leaves we had preserved, and we worked to match them to the leaf shapes on our cards.
Until we did this activity I had no idea there was such an expansive vocabulary for describing leaf shapes. Whew!
Here are some printables you can use to help your children learn about the leaf shapes:
- Leaf Blade nomenclature cards from Elementary Observations
- Leaf Shapes three part cards from Green Tree Montessori Materials on Teachers Pay Teachers
- Leaf Shapes 3-part cards from Montessori Print Shop
- Leaf Shapes book from Montessori Print Shop
- Leaf Shapes Definitions from Maitri Learning
Other leaf activities
On my Botany Unit Study page, I have a section devoted to all of the leaf activities we did during our leaves unit. There you will find lots of great activity ideas and resources for teaching your kids about leaves.
And finally, here are some other leaf printables your kids may enjoy:
- Science the Montessori Way: Leaves pack from Temple of Ganesha Montessori
- Leaf Identification flashcards from Look, We’re Learning!
- Leaf Identification cards from Wildflower Ramblings
- Leaf Types worksheet {UPDATE: broken link removed} from KB Teachers
- Fall Leaf lacing cards from Gift of Curiosity
More resources for learning about leaves
More leaf posts from Gift of Curiosity:
- The best way to preserve leaves
- Leaf anatomy
- How leaves “breathe”: A transpiration demonstration
- How leaves get water
- How and why leaves change color in the fall
- Leaf collages art project
- Leaf rubbings activity book
- Fall leaves Sudoku
- Fall leaves lacing cards
For more leaf activities, see my Botany Unit Study page and my Leaves Unit Study Pinterest board.
Follow Katie @ Gift of Curiosity’s board Unit Ideas: Leaves on Pinterest.
Sabrina says
September 11, 2015 at 12:58 pmThank you for providing your readers with some wonderful resources to aid in our homeschooling journey. 🙂 Pinning this!
Lolly says
September 11, 2015 at 6:17 pmFabulous post! Thank you for including a link to my blog 🙂
Mariana says
September 13, 2015 at 3:33 amWonderfully in-depth as usual; I will definitely be doing some of these with my kindergartener.
I wanted to ask, what age are your kids now? I’m thinking some of the activities might be better for those who already know to read; am I correct? My DD is 5 1/2 and we are working on learning to read this year. I am thinking in particular of the leaf parts activity with the labels; should I wait until she knows to read to do it, or is it worth it to do it anyhow and read the parts to her, then revisit the activity when she knows how to read?
Thanks for any information!
Yours,
Mariana
Katie SG says
September 13, 2015 at 12:05 pmMy kids were 4 and 5 when we did our leaf unit, and neither of them knew how to read at that time. When we did the activities I would help by reading the labels for them. For the leaf parts activity with the labels, I would point to a part on the leaf and tell my son what it was called, and he could identify the label based on the initial sound of the word. In that way, I added a literacy dimension to the activity as well. Of course, with an older child that knows how to read you could adjust the level of help you provide. But to answer your question, no, I do not think children need to know how to read to do these activities if there is an adult who can assist them. Even before they learn to read they can develop the vocabulary to talk about the parts of the leaves, they can look at pictures showing the shapes of the leaves, etc.
Mariana says
September 14, 2015 at 1:59 pmThanks for the insight! I think that’s a great explanation and I think it makes sense; I did do some plant life cycle activities with labels last year, even though she didn’t know how to read yet.
We will give these activities a try next week!
Thank you for all your great content!
Cheers
Mariana
Leah says
June 9, 2019 at 10:00 amWe will try these activities this week. I love your blog.