|
The Language of Plants
Last updated Friday, November 7, 2025
Author: Helena Harastova
Illustrator: Darya Beklemesheva
Date of Publication: 2023
ISBN: 8000067978
Grade Level: 5th (GLCs: Click here for grade level guidelines.)
Date(s) Used: Nov. 2025
Synopsis:
Plants - nice but boring? This book will change your mind! Open it and see how they talk without tongue, listen without ears, see without eyes, breathe without lungs, and behave intelligently without brain. Recent scientific findings will make you treat the plants with respect and admiration.
Do plants have superpowers we have overlooked? Recent scientific findings have shaken our traditional view of plants. Now we know that plants not only take an interest in the world around them, but they react to it, too. Explore with us the depths of the plant soul, and learn how plants converse, help one another, fight together, what they remember, and how plant mail works.
| Note to readers: |
| • |
There is lots of scientific language in this book. See the Glossary inside the back cover. Show it to the kids. Make sure they know to look for Glossaries in books!
|
| Discussion topics for before reading: |
| • |
Could it be that plants rule the world? How would that work?
|
| • |
What if . . . plnats have superpowers we don't know about?
|
| • |
What can plants do better than humans?
Vocabulary:
|
| • |
Glossary - a mini-dictionary that address specific words in a document
|
| • |
carnivorous - meat-eating
|
| • |
chlorophyll - green pigment that plants use to grow, converting sun, water and air into plant matter via photosynthesis
|
| • |
toxin - poison
|
| • |
organism - a living creature
|
| • |
essential - necessary (needed)
|
| Discussion topics for during/after reading: |
| • |
p. 3 Which of these things (bottom 2/3 of the page) do people do? and how?
|
| • |
p. 4 You probably knew that plants exhale oxygen during the day. Did you know the process reverses at night? Do people do something like that?
|
| • |
p. 6 Breathing in winter - plants here in Southern California don't go into hibernation. And when the northern parts of N. America and Europe are frozen and cold, wouth of the Equator, it's summer!
|
| • |
p.13 What other biological pest controls do you know about (besides the hoverfly)? Ladybugs and . . .?
|
| Craft ideas: |
| • |
Design a garden for your school. 1. Draw the outline of the different plants, put "plant friends" together. 2. What are they "Plant friends"?
|
| • |
Use 1 sheet of construction papaer and 1/4 sheeat each of orange, red, yellow and brown (tissue paper, if available) paper, and twine or string. Cut out leaf shapes from the tissue paper and glue them on the construction paper. Use twine to make stems, center veins, etc. Draw additional veins in on the leaves.
|
| • |
Thanksgiving is the 4th Thursday of November every year. Make a thank you card for someone who helps you. You could even use the leaf craft above for your card.
|
| Special activities: |
| • |
Do the word search.
|
*Note: These craft ideas are just suggestions.
You can use them, but you don't have to use them.
You can expand upon them, or add your own twist.
Remember, though, that the focus of your time should
not be on the development and execution of a craft;
the focus should be on the read-aloud and the
enjoyment of the book!
|
