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3rd grade · Science · Unit 1 of 8

How Plants Grow & Change

Life cycles, seeds, and making food from sunlight

What your child practices

From seed to flower and back to seed, how seeds travel, how plants react to light and seasons, and how they use sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to make food and release oxygen.

Alaska content standards learning standard: 3-LS1-1 · the life cycle of flowering plants

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Life cycle: seed, sprout, seedling, flowering plant, new seeds.
  2. Seeds travel by wind, water and animals, like burrs stuck in fur.
  3. Plants take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen, which we breathe.

Example: Fluffy seeds float away on a breeze. How do they travel? Fluff catches moving air. They travel by wind. Answer: by wind

How Plants Grow & Change in Alaska

In the Alaska content standards, this is unit 1 of 8 in 3rd grade Science, before Pushes, Pulls & Forces.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alaska Department of Education and Early Development

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    What is the first stage in the life cycle of most plants?

    🌰
    • a seed
    • a flower
    • a fruit
    • a leaf

  2. Question 2

    Which gas do plants release that people need to breathe?

    💨
    • steam
    • helium
    • smoke
    • oxygen

  3. Question 3

    What gas do plants take in from the air to make food?

    🍃
    • smoke
    • carbon dioxide
    • helium
    • oxygen

  4. Question 4

    Put the life cycle of a bean plant in order. Tap the first stage first.

    • 🫘pods with new seeds
    • 🌿seedling with leaves
    • 🌰seed
    • 🌱seed sprouts
    • 🌼plant with flowers

  5. Question 5

    How does the seed travel? Tap an item, then tap its basket.

    Sort into: 🌬️ carried by the wind · 🐿️ carried by animals

    • 🐕burdock burr stuck in fur
    • 🌳cottonwood fluff
    • 🌼dandelion fluff
    • 🌿milkweed fluff
    • 🐻raspberry eaten by a bear
    • 🐿️acorn buried by a squirrel

  6. Question 6

    Chlorophyll gives leaves their green color. What else does it do?

    🍃
    • pulls water up from the roots
    • stops the leaf from falling
    • helps the leaf capture sunlight
    • makes the leaf smell sweet

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