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Grow It 3-5 / Week 01 / Thursday
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Week 01 · Plant Parts and Jobs

Thursday

Leaves make food
// Every part has a job to do
⏱ about 15 min

Thursday: Leaves Make Food

Rocket flips through his notebook. "I fed my plant crumbs, but it did not want them."

Raven holds a green leaf up to the window. "What do you notice? Light shines right through."

Nova hovers near the leaf. "Plants do not need crumbs," she says. "Where could their food come from?"

Rocket gasps. "Do plants make their own food?"

The food-making factory

Leaves are the food-making factories of green plants.

This food-making process is called photosynthesis.

A leaf uses light energy, water and carbon dioxide from the air.

It turns them into a sugar the plant uses for food.

Leaves also give off oxygen, which people and animals breathe.

Built for the job

  • Leaves are shaped to catch light.
  • Tiny openings let air and water go in and out.
  • A waxy coat on top protects the leaf.
  • Veins carry water and nutrients through the leaf.
  • Chlorophyll is the green coloring that helps leaves use light.
Leaves make food using ____ energy.
The food-making process is called ____.
Leaves give off a gas we breathe called ____.
PUT THE LEAF'S FOOD MAKING IN ORDER
  • ?Light shines on the leaf.
  • ?Water and air come into the leaf.
  • ?The leaf makes sugar.
  • ?The sugar travels to the rest of the plant.
WHY THIS EXERCISEFirst the leaf gathers what it needs, then it makes and shares food.
LEAF DETECTIVE
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
What does the waxy coat on a leaf do?
What do the veins in a leaf carry?
Try it
With a grown-up, look at a leaf on a houseplant or a tree.
Hold it up to a window. Find the veins.
Look but do not pick. Leave the leaf on the plant.
Safety first
Only look at plants a grown-up says are safe.
Never touch wild plants you do not know.
Never put a leaf in your mouth.

Bean window check: do you see a shoot reaching up?

The shoot will soon carry the first leaves of your bean.

Draw a leaf. Label the veins and show where light comes in.

Leaf legends! Tomorrow we meet flowers, fruits and seeds, the new-plant makers.

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