KS1 Flowering and Non-Flowering Plants Sorting Activity

What’s included in this plant sorting activity?

In this plant sorting activity, you’ll find a total of five different sheets, three of which contain a total of 24 flash cards for flowering and non-flowering plants. The other two sheets are where the cards can be placed to sort them into the two different categories. The aim of this exercise is for children to sort the different plants into one of the two categories: flowering or non-flowering.

The cards include a wide range of flowers, trees and other plants. These include sunflowers, daisies, spruce trees and moss. They come with a photo of the plant as well as a label, but you could create a matching activity with them if you cut the labels off and ask children to match them up to the plant photos.

This resource is easy to download and print out, all you need to do is hit the green button and it’ll be downloaded as a PDF. There are also a few print options to choose from too including the standard colour version, but you could go for the super eco colour version instead. It still gives you a good quality colour print, but uses up a lot less ink.

How can I use this plant sorting activity?

This resource is best used in a Science lesson when learning about types of plants, parts of a plant or plant reproduction. You can use this plant sorting activity as a whole class task, or an individual task for more advanced learners. However, it can work well as a group activity.

If you’re teaching a lesson on flowering and non-flowering plants, you can also pair this plant sorting activity with this Parts of a Plant Interactive Labelling Activity or the Life Cycle of a Plant PowerPoint.

You can even test your children’s knowledge with this Plants Multiple Choice Quiz.

What’s the difference between flowering and non-flowering plants?

Plants can be categorised into two groups: flowering and non-flowering plants. Flowering plants are any that produce a flower, which includes plants like roses and apple trees. Even potato plants produce flowers.

Whether or not a plant produces flowers comes down to their method of reproduction. Flowering plants rely on pollination to disperse their seeds, meaning they need flowers to attract insects to spread the plant’s pollen about.

Non-flowering plants, however - like pine trees and moss - reproduce either by scattering their seeds or spores. They can either be scattered on the ground or, most commonly, by the wind.