Year 1 science · Key Stage 1 · Plants

Year 1 plants and trees: a guide for parents

In Year 1, children learn to name and recognise common wild and garden plants, including deciduous and evergreen trees, and to describe the basic parts of a flowering plant or tree. Most of the learning happens outdoors, using the school grounds and local area, and children look at the same plants at different times of year to see how they change.

Common plants and their parts, explained

The national curriculum asks Year 1 children to identify and name a variety of common wild and garden plants, and to describe the basic structure of common flowering plants, including trees. It does not give a list of plants, so schools choose. Common wild examples are daisies, dandelions, buttercups, clover and bluebells. Common garden examples are daffodils, tulips, sunflowers, roses and lavender. The aim is not to learn dozens of names but to start noticing that plants have names, that the same kind of plant grows in many places, and that different plants can be told apart by their leaves, flowers and shape.

Children also learn two groups of trees. Deciduous trees, such as oak, beech, horse chestnut and silver birch, lose their leaves in autumn and grow new ones in spring. Evergreen trees, such as holly, Scots pine and yew, keep their leaves all year round. Evergreen trees do lose old leaves, but a few at a time, so they never look bare. Many schools use the ideas “leaves fall in autumn” and “leaves stay on all year” as a simple first way of sorting.

The basic parts of a plant are taught using real plants and simple labelled drawings. Most flowering plants have roots, a stem, leaves and flowers, and each flower has petals. After flowering, many plants make fruit with seeds inside. A tree is a plant too: its thick, woody stem is called the trunk, and it has branches, leaves, roots and, in many trees, blossom and fruit. A bulb, such as a daffodil bulb, sits underground and stores food for the new plant. In Year 1 children name and point to the parts they can see. It helps to know that roots hold the plant in the ground and take in water, and the stem holds the plant up, but explaining what each part does is a Year 3 objective.

Working scientifically is a big part of the topic. The curriculum suggests that children use the local environment throughout the year, and watch flowers and vegetables that they have planted growing. They might use a magnifying glass to look at a leaf, compare leaves and sort them into groups, draw diagrams of plant parts and record changes such as buds opening or leaves falling. Because the topic follows the seasons, many Year 1 classes go back to the same tree several times in the year.

There is no science test at this age. Teachers judge learning by listening to children talk about what they see and by looking at their labelled drawings, so the best preparation is simply spending time outdoors and talking about plants using the correct words.

Words your child will hear

Root: The part of a plant that grows in the soil. It holds the plant in place and takes in water.
Stem: The part that holds the plant up. In a tree, it is the trunk.
Leaf: The flat, usually green part that grows from the stem or a branch.
Petal: One of the coloured parts around the middle of a flower.
Deciduous: A tree that loses all its leaves in autumn, such as an oak.
Evergreen: A tree that keeps its leaves all year round, such as a holly or a pine.
Bulb: A part that grows under the ground and stores food, such as a daffodil bulb.

What the National Curriculum says

In Year 1, pupils should be taught to:

Identify and name a variety of common wild and garden plants, including deciduous and evergreen trees
Identify and describe the basic structure of a variety of common flowering plants, including trees

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: is our school tree deciduous or evergreen?

A class visits the same tree on the edge of the playground in autumn, winter and spring. How can they find out whether it is deciduous or evergreen and label its parts?

Look closely in autumn. Children use a magnifying glass on a fallen leaf and notice its shape, the veins and the colour. They collect a few leaves and sort them: leaves that are green, yellow, red and brown.
Draw and label the tree. Standing back, they draw the trunk, the branches and the leaves, and add labels. Children can also feel the bark and make a bark rubbing with paper and a crayon to compare with other trees.
Go back in winter and observe again. The branches are bare, with small buds on the twigs. Children record the change with a second drawing.
Decide and sort. The class talk about what happened to the leaves: “This tree lost all its leaves in autumn.” They compare it with a holly bush by the gate that still has leaves in winter.
Go back in spring. The buds are opening and small new leaves are appearing. Children use the evidence from all three visits to say which group the tree belongs in.

“Our tree is deciduous because it lost all its leaves in autumn and had bare branches in winter. New leaves grew from buds in spring. The holly keeps its leaves all year, so it is evergreen.”

Common mistakes and how to help

Saying that evergreen trees never lose their leaves

The name suggests the leaves stay forever. Children see a pine tree green in January and conclude nothing ever falls from it.

What helps: Look under an evergreen tree at the old needles or leaves on the ground. Explain that evergreen trees shed old leaves a few at a time, all through the year, so the tree is never bare.

Thinking that trees which look bare in winter are dead

Children link green leaves with being alive, so a bare tree looks lifeless.

What helps: Look for buds on the twigs in winter and talk about the tree resting. Return in spring to see the leaves reappear.

Thinking that trees and grass are not plants

Young children often picture a plant as something small and green in a pot, perhaps with a flower. A huge tree, or a lawn they run on, seems like a different kind of thing.

What helps: Say that trees are plants with a thick woody stem, the trunk, and that grass is a plant too. Point out that daisies and dandelions in the lawn are wild plants with flowers, and that many trees have flowers, called blossom. Weeds are simply plants growing where someone doesn’t want them.

Thinking that “fruit” only means the sweet things we buy to eat

In everyday talk, fruit means apples, bananas and strawberries. In science, a fruit is the part of a plant that grows from the flower and holds the seeds, so conkers, acorns, tomatoes and pea pods count too.

What helps: Ask an adult to cut open an apple, a tomato or a pepper and find the seeds together. In autumn, look for conkers in their spiky cases and acorns in their cups, and talk about the tree they came from.

How to help at home

Name three plants on the way to school. Choose a regular walk and spot a tree, a flower and a weed on the way. Learn one new name each week. A plant identification book from the library is plenty.
Adopt a tree. Pick a tree near home and visit it every month. Take a photo or draw it, and ask “What has changed?” After a year you will have a collection that shows deciduous or evergreen at a glance.
Leaf sorting. Collect fallen leaves on a walk and sort them by size, shape, colour or edge. Put a sheet of paper over a leaf and rub with a crayon to make a rubbing and compare the veins.
Grow something on a windowsill. Cress, a bean in a clear pot, or a bulb in soil are all cheap and quick to watch (wash hands after handling bulbs, which are not safe to eat). Draw the plant every few days and label the roots, stem and leaves as they appear.
Look but don’t eat. Make a rule that wild plants, berries and seeds are for looking at, not tasting or putting in mouths, and wash hands after touching soil or plants. Avoid nettles and any plant you can’t identify.

Leads on to

Year 2: How seeds and bulbs grow

Everything in Year 1 science

Updated 20 October 2026.