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3rd grade · Science · Unit 4 of 12

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.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 3.13(B) · the life cycles of flowering plants such as beans

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 Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 4 of 12 in 3rd grade Science, after Speed & Motion and before Basic Needs & Life Cycles.

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: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

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

    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
    • 🐻raspberry eaten by a bear
    • 🌿milkweed fluff
    • 🍁maple key (a seed with a wing)
    • 🐦berry eaten by a bird

  2. Question 2

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

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

  3. Question 3

    Most plants make their food using energy from…

    ☀️
    • the soil
    • the Sun
    • the rain
    • the Moon

  4. Question 4

    During photosynthesis, what does a plant do?

    🌳
    • takes in carbon dioxide and releases oxygen
    • takes in oxygen and releases carbon dioxide
    • takes in soil and releases water
    • takes in nectar and releases pollen

  5. Question 5

    Squirrels bury acorns and forget some. What can happen?

    🐿️
    • some acorns grow into oak trees
    • nothing can ever happen
    • the squirrels grow roots
    • the acorns turn into mushrooms

  6. Question 6

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

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

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