🔬 ScienceLevel 1Lesson 3
← Back🔒 PDF with full access

Plants Need Sunlight and Water

Lesson preview: the Mini Lesson and Vocabulary are open to everyone. Guided practice, exercises, the parent checklist and the printable PDF worksheet come with full access (free 7-day trial or membership).

Learning Objectives

  • 1Name what plants need to survive
  • 2Explain what sunlight, water, soil, and air each do for a plant
📘

Mini Lesson

Have you ever wondered why a plant by a sunny window grows tall, but a plant in a dark corner wilts? Plants are living things — and like all living things, they have needs.

Plants need sunlight

  • Sunlight gives plants the energy to make their own food.
  • This food-making process is called photosynthesis.
  • Example: Leaves face the sun to catch as much light as possible.

Plants need water

  • Roots soak up water from the soil and send it up the stem.
  • Water carries minerals from the soil to every part of the plant.
  • Without water, a plant will wilt and die.

Plants need soil and air

  • Soil holds the roots in place and stores minerals the plant uses.
  • Plants take in a gas called carbon dioxide from the air through tiny holes in their leaves.
  • They use carbon dioxide and sunlight together to make food.
A plant showing its four needs: sunlight, water, soil, and airA plant in soil with arrows pointing to sunlight from above, water droplets at the roots, soil at the base, and an air swirl near the leaves.sunsoil — holds roots & mineralswaterair
A plant uses sunlight, water, soil, and air to survive.
What happens when a plant loses each needTwo columns: healthy plant with sunlight and water on the left, wilting plant without them on the right.With needsWithout needstall and healthywilting and weak
A plant with its needs (left) stays healthy. Without them (right) it wilts.
💡

Ask yourself: "What would happen if I covered the plant's leaves? What if I stopped watering it?"

Vocabulary
Sunlight
Light from the sun that plants use to make foode.g. Plants face the sunlight.
Water
A drink plants pull up from the soil through their rootse.g. Roots take in water.
Soil
The dirt that holds plants and stores food for theme.g. My plant grows in soft soil.
Photosynthesis
How plants use sunlight, water, and air to make their foode.g. Leaves do photosynthesis to make food.
Carbon dioxide
A gas in the air that plants take in through their leavese.g. Leaves breathe in carbon dioxide.
Wilt
When a plant droops because it has no watere.g. My flower will wilt without water.
Free · 7 days · No credit card

Unlock the full HSEA system for 7 days.

Add your first kid profile and your 7 days start: every lesson in every grade, saved progress for each child. Nothing to set up, no card required, nothing to cancel.

  • ✓ All 1,680 lessons, Grades 1–6, every subject
  • ✓ Profiles + saved progress for every kid
  • ✓ Printable lessons with answer key
Start your 7-day free trial →
Already convinced? See full membership plans →
← Lesson 2: Nonliving Things Around UsLesson 4: Parts of a Plant →