Lesson 5: Looking closely and noticing changes
Explore the Reception plant life cycle through dandelions, fruit and seeds. Children sequence the stages of a dandelion as it grows, consider how seeds move to new places and investigate the different seeds they can find inside fruit and in their local environment.
The lesson supports Understanding the World: The Natural World and develops the early scientific enquiry skill of looking closely and noticing changes. Children also revisit their plant growth logs to record changes in the seeds planted earlier in the unit.
How does a plant change as it grows?
Children explore the stages of a dandelion life cycle and order the stages using picture cards. They learn that plants develop seeds and explore how seeds can move to new places. Children then extract seeds from different fruits and go on a seed hunt, using magnifying glasses to compare their size, shape and colour.
Reception plant life cycle and seed activities
This lesson includes:
- teacher lesson plan
- launchable teaching slides
- plant growth log
- Dandelion Stages cards
- dandelion life cycle sequencing activity
- fruit seed investigation
- outdoor seed hunt and sorting activity
- ideas for planting collected seeds and observing which grow
- seed investigation and sensory activities
- assessment questions
✨ How to use the launchable slides
Launch the presentation directly in your browser and use it on your interactive whiteboard.
📝 Click Notes to see teacher guidance, answers and additional information where included.
⬅️ ➡️ To move through the presentation, click on the slides first, then use the left and right cursor arrow keys on your keyboard.
For technical and copyright reasons, these presentation slides are available to launch online rather than download.
Explore more lessons in our Reception Plants and Growth science unit, or see our complete Reception science scheme.
This resource is part of the Mrs Mactivity Science Scheme of Work →
