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Topic: Growing Plants KS1

Growing Plants Topic

Best Children’s Books about Growing Plants and Gardening

There is nothing quite so magical as the process of watching a plant grow – from seeds and shoots to leaves and flowers. Learning about growing plants is part of the Science curriculum in primary schools, with children learning to name local wildflowers and trees, exploring the functions of different parts of a plant and investigating what plants need to grow and thrive.

We’ve put together a list of recommended books to support the topic of growing plants at KS1 and EYFS, covering everything from seed dispersal and life cycles to edible plant parts and activities for green-fingered budding gardeners. From stories about gardening like Lulu Loves Flowers and Oliver’s Vegetables, to beautifully illustrated non-fiction choices like The Big Book of Blooms, this booklist provides a handpicked selection of the best children’s books about growing plants.

NB: This selection of stories about growing plants is aimed at children aged 4-7. If you are looking for books for older children, try our KS2 Plants and Trees list.

The Extraordinary Gardener

Picturebook

Joe is a boy just like any other, but Joe loves to imagine. Joe lives in a pretty ordinary tower block, in a rather ordinary city. His world is rather grey. However, he spends his time imagining a wonderful world filled with exotic plants and unusual animals. Once day Joe decides to plant a seed on his balcony, he waits and waits but nothing happens! Joe gives up and goes back to his daily life, but one day when he least expects it he spots that the seed has turned into the most beautiful tree. Joe begins caring for the tree and growing lots of other plants on his balcony and soon everyone in the neighbourhood is getting involved. A charming story about the important of nature, teaching us that if we work hard enough our dreams really can come true!

Sunflower Shoots and Muddy Boots: A Child’s Guide to Gardening

Non-fiction

Packed with brilliant activities and green-fingered ideas, top tips and fascinating facts, from growing berries and flowers in old hats and welly boots, to making miniature indoor magic gardens or even growing your own secret den. The perfect first introduction to the absolute delight of growing plants.

Related activity sheets available on the Nosy Crow website.

Katie and the Sunflowers

Picturebook

Join Katie as she steps into some of the most famous paintings in the world for an exciting art adventure!

Katie would love to grow her own flowers, so when she sees some seeds in Van Gogh’s Sunflowers masterpiece she can’t resist reaching in and grabbing some . . . Mimi, a little girl from a painting nearby, comes to help, but when Mimi’s dog Zazou comes too disaster follows!

Lifecycles: Seed to Sunflower

Non-fiction

How do sunflowers begin? What do sunflowers need to grow? When do the flowers open?

Discover the amazing stages of different life cycles and learn how different species are born, grow up and reproduce with this stunning series. Packed with amazing photographs of every stage, labelled diagrams to explain growth and development, fascinating facts and discussion points for further learning.

Secret Sky Garden

Picturebook

A startlingly original picture book about a little girl who creates a garden on a disused car park rooftop

Funni loves the old, disused car park , and spends a lot of time there flying her kite and playing her recorder. But something is missing. Definitely. So Funni decides to create a garden in the neglected space and after weeks of careful nurture, her garden in the sky takes shape. One day, a little boy, Zoo, spots the square of colour amongst the grey from an incoming flight, and decides to try to find it. And slowly, not only do Funni’s flowers bloom, but a very special friendship blossoms too.

It Starts with a Seed

It Starts With a Seed

Non-fiction

With lyrical text, enchanting illustrations and a beautiful fold-out scene to complete the story, this award-winning picture book takes you on a journey through the seasons and years as you follow a seed’s transformation from a seedling to a sapling, then a young tree, until it becomes a large tree with its branches and roots filling the page.

As the tree grows, it is joined by well-loved woodland creatures – squirrels and rabbits, butterflies and owls – who make it their home. A rhyming poem builds page on page, echoing the rings of a growing tree. The story culminates with a fold-out page showing a mature tree shedding seeds to continue the beautiful cycle of life. At the back, find the full poem and facts about the specific tree, a sycamore.

Beautiful and evocative, It Starts With a Seed is a factual story that will touch children with its simple, enchanting message of life and growth.

Look and Wonder: The Amazing Life Cycle of Plants

Picturebook

Dig deep and explore the incredible plant life cycle story. From tiny seeds to small shoots, long branches and mighty tree trunks, explore the life cycle of plants and find out what plants need to help them grow.
Follow the journey of a young boy and girl as they find out about how plants grow. This beautifully illustrated picture book explains why insects are important to plants, how seeds travel and why plants are important to us all.

Bloom by Anne Booth

Bloom

Picturebook

There was once a beautiful flower and a little girl who loved it. She talked to it every morning on her way to school. The owner of the flower shouted at her. The next day, the flower did not open. The angry man didn’t understand. He tried watering it. He tried giving it shade and he tried talking to it. He told it how wonderful he was, how important his job was and how lonely he felt. But it still refused to open. So, he asked the little girl. “Why don’t you tell it how wonderful it is and how much you love it?” she said. As he did so, his own heart filled with love. And the flower bloomed.

A Seed is Sleepy

Non-fiction

Award-winning artist Sylvia Long and author Dianna Hutts Aston have teamed up again to create this gorgeous and informative introduction to seeds. Poetic in voice and elegant in design, the book introduces children to a fascinating array of seed and plant facts, making it a guide that is equally at home being read on a parent’s lap as in a classroom reading circle.

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