Free Flower Printables and Montessori-Inspired Flower Activities

Flowers make a great theme for spring … and especially for May if you’re focusing on the saying “April showers bring May flowers.”

Here, you’ll find links to free flower printables used to prepare hands-on activities and a new Montessori-inspired flower pack for our free newsletter subscribers’ resource library! This unit has resources for preschool through early elementary.

Disclosure: This post contains some affiliate links (at no cost to you).  

Montessori Shelves with Flower-Themed Activities

You’ll find Montessori-inspired flower themed numbers, letters, and and more (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber) Note: The Montessori-inspired flower pack isn’t designed as a complete flower unit but as supplemental materials. I design the packs using realistic images that I’ve often looked for when preparing a unit study (such as font cards and phonogram cards featuring the letter and phonogram related to the theme and math cards with realistic images that fit the theme and can be adapted for math activities at a variety of levels.)

You could mix your flower-themed activities among your shelves according to curriculum area. Or you could have a special flower-themed area something like the one pictured. My shelves at the beginning of our unit have a mixture of skill levels. Many of the activities can be adapted for a variety of levels. If you’re a homeschooler, just choose the activities that work for your child’s interests and ability levels. If you don’t have room for all the activities you’d like to do, simply rotate them.

Notice the framed illustration Lilacs in a Window (c. 1880) by Mary Cassatt. It’s a free download from Wikiart. 

For our monthly featured art print, I purchased a Li’l DAVINCI art frame that opens in the front for easily changing a free art masterpiece printable or vintage illustration to fit with the month’s theme. The frame can be switched from horizontal to vertical without changing the hanger, which is perfect!

If you’re wondering about the rugs and rug box I use, both the rugs and wooden rug holder are from Montessori Services. I love the Montessori Services rugs and rug holder! I used to use an umbrella stand something like these. I loved that for 1-3 rugs, but I needed something different when I had more grandchildren and some projects that needed more than one rug.

Favorite Shelves, Trays, Baskets, and More for Montessori Homeschoolers

I often get asked about the trays, baskets, etc., that I use, so I published a post with many of the items. You can find lots of helpful resources here. They’re not all essential, so don’t feel you need to have everything. Just choose what’s best for your budget and your unique family’s needs. You’ll find more ideas in the Living Montessori Now Amazon shop

Books for a Flower Unit 

Even though I have books on shelves, I usually have many of my themed books in a forward-facing display after placing a plant where the themed book basket was before. Most of my seasonal books are now in that book basket. Most of the books and activities in this unit are for preschool through elementary.

For toddlers and preschoolers, about ¾ of the books I use are typically Montessori friendly (focusing on reality without smiling or talking animals or smiling or talking vehicles). 

Top Shelf of Themed Shelves: 

• What’s Inside a Flower? is a lovely book. It does have some smiling flowers and animals, though, in case you only want Montessori-style books.
• I love the Big Book Series! The Big Book of Blooms is fabulous, like all the others. I love the series for toddlers (adapted as needed) through early elementary. It’s entertaining for a wide variety of ages!
• On the cookbook easel, I show two flower pages from Picturepedia, which I love as a reference for most units!

Top Shelf of Forward -Facing Display:

• Tree of Life: The Incredible Biodiversity of Life on Earth
• Botanicum (beautiful book at any time and great for discussing plants in the fall)Nature Anatomy
• Nature Anatomy (I have this fabulous Julia Rothman collection and some other Julia Rothman books.)

2nd Shelf:

• Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt is a lovely Montessori-friendly book recommended for ages 5-8.
• Trees, Leaves, Flowers and Seeds: A Visual Encyclopedia of the Plant Kingdom
• Atlas of Plants

3rd Shelf:

• A Seed Is Sleepy – The illustrations of a wide variety of seeds in this book are gorgeous, making it a wonderful addition to a study of seeds and plants around the world. (Recommended for ages 5-10.)
• From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons (Note: I still have the version of this book from when my now-adult kids were little, but the cover hasn’t changed.)
• National Geographic Kids Seed to Plant

4th Shelf:

• The Reason for a Flower 
• What Is a Flower? (A book my now-adult kids had for our homeschooling)
• I Can Grow a Flower

Bottom Shelf

• Ten Seeds
• The Tiny Seed: With seeded paper to grow your own flowers! by Eric Carle
• Zinnia’s Flower Garden

Our peace table has a flower theme right now, too! 

On the table top, I love having our wooden peace rose (I think a real rose, wooden rose, or silk rose is a good option) and The Peace Rose. The book helps children know how to use the peace rose for conflict resolution. You can read more about the book in my Peace Books post.

Across the room is a shelf with a number of spring books, which all include flowers!

Here are the spring books on our shelf:

• And then it’s spring (beautiful book illustrated by a Caldecott Award-winning illustrator)
• Spring (beautiful board book with no words by Gerda Muller)
• Everything Grows (Raffi Songs to Read) – sweet board book for Raffi fans
• Everything Spring from National Geographic Kids has beautiful photographs as do all National Geographic books, and it gives a nice introduction to spring for preschoolers.
• When Spring Comes by Kevin Henkes (lovely spring book for ages 3-5)

You can see many flower books here: Flower Books for Kids (including books as they’re published)

What’s Inside a Flower? Book and Parts of a Flower Activities

What’s Inside a Flower? is a lovely book. It does have some smiling flowers and animals, though, in case you only want Montessori-style books.

Free Printable: Parts of a Flower Printables from 1+1+1=1

I love the Montessori nature puzzles, such as the Montessori flower puzzle. You’ll find ideas using the Montessori flower puzzle in my Montessori-Inspired Flower Activities post. So I chose to feature a printable that’s focused on older children. It can be used with preschoolers as well.

The Big Book of Blooms and Flower Scavenger Hunt

I love the Big Book Series! The Big Book of Blooms is fabulous, like all the others. I love the series for toddlers (adapted as needed) through early elementary. It’s entertaining for a wide variety of ages!

Free Printable: Flower Scavenger Hunt from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

My grandkids are huge fans of scavenger hunts. We have a scavenger hunt using a free printable for almost every major holiday. If my grandkids are getting presents or treats, I typically have a scavenger hunt for them with their presents at the end. Those are one of my favorite ways to encourage early readers, and my grandkids continue to love them even when they’re secure in their reading skills.

Scavenger hunts are are also a fun way to teach a variety of concepts. I used the flower scavenger hunt printable as a fun way for my three grandkids (Sophia and Caleb at 6 and Zoey at 10) to learn to identify a number of flowers. I assigned them each a task so they could work cooperatively. Zoey hid each flower image with label (and gave hints when needed for them to be found), Caleb read each of the flower names, and Sophia recorded the flowers as they were found. They all loved the activity and did it twice in a row.

Flower Pages from Picturepedia with Types of Flower Activities in the Background

On the cookbook easel, I show two flower pages from Picturepedia, which I love as a reference for most units! In the background, you can see two of our types of flower activities. See descriptions below.

Sand Writing Tray for a Flower Unit

Free Printable /t/ for tulip font cards (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my free newsletter to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber). They come in print, D’Nealian, and cursive. 

You’ll see a variety of simple letter writing trays in my previous unit study posts. I often used the wooden tray from the Melissa & Doug Lace and Trace Shapes. You can use whatever tray or container work best for you, though.

The sandpaper letters I use with younger kids are available in print or cursive.

I typically now use this lovely spelling/alphabet tray from FamilyTreeWW on Etsy. I like it for writing more than one letter or spelling words. (Note: That sand tray is currently unavailable, but you’ll find lots of other options for Montessori sand trays on Etsy.) I found some colored sand in 12 colors on Amazon that I started to use instead of salt or colored salt. I love it because it’s so soft and feels great! 

If you would like help with introducing phonetic sounds, introducing objects with sounds, or beginning phonics in general, check out my DIY Beginning Montessori Phonics with Preschoolers.

Long o Work Featuring o_e in Rose

Free Printable: O_e in rose (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my free newsletter to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber)

Free Printable: Long o Poster Set (oe, ow, oe, and o_e) by HTX Teacher at TPT

I wanted to focus here on the long o sounds, and I like the cards by HTX Teacher as an extension of the traditional long o Montessori phonogram work. I printed the posters 4 to a page, making them into cards and cut off the borders of the cards.

Marigold Alphabet Cards in Print and Cursive

Free Printable: marigold alphabet cards (part of my subscriber freebies, so just sign up for my free newsletter to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber). 

There are so many ways the alphabet cards can be used! This is just one idea for children who are focusing on both spelling and learning cursive. 

The marigold alphabet cards in print and cursive are easily adaptable, depending on the child’s level. They can be used for a variety of activities, such as matching letters with sandpaper letters, matching print to cursive letters, or movable alphabet word building. 

Flower Arrangement Math Activity

Free Printable: flower arrangement number cards (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my free newsletter to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber).

You could use these math cards in a variety of activities with real or artificial flowers. I thought this would be a good way to specify how many flowers a child can put in an arrangement. In a large school, the number of flowers for each child would be less. 

I chose this artificial spring bouquet of daffodils, tulips, peonies, and hyacinths. I cut apart the flowers that came in a bunch and ended up with 25 flowers. The tulips and daffodils were taller than the peonies and hyacinths, so I had more than one vase available. You could have the child count how many are one type of flower or one characteristic (such as tall vs short). 

You could also play this like a card game. The child could draw a number card (or spin a spinner from the printable pack) and make an arrangement with that number of flowers. 

There are so many different activities you can prepare using the math cards! You’ll find many ideas in our previous units.

Flower Drawing Tutorials with Watercolor Paints

Free Printable: Let’s Draw Flowers! from 1+1+1=1

My 6- and 10-year-old grandkids are all at ages where an activity like this is lots of fun. This was the first activity in our new unit that Caleb took off the shelf. He independently followed the tutorial to make the poppy and then painted it with the watercolor paints. It was beautiful!

More Types of Flower Activities

The first activity doesn’t use free printables, although the printables I used are inexpensive. TheBloomMom has watercolor flower flashcards and poster on Etsy. They’re designed to go with the Safari Ltd. Flowers TOOB with an additional 12 flowers. I just used the poster to go with the Montessori Print Shop Flowers TOOB cards. Montessori Print Shop includes two styles of 3-part cards in the set, although I love the cards with rounded corners and feathered edges. 

This uses only free printables, but I didn’t have room for it on the main shelf. I made different colors of playdough using my no-cook playdough recipe that’s very easy to make and lasts up to 6 months!

Free Printable: Spring Flowers Playdough Mats from Totschooling

Free Printable: Flower Shape Playdough Mats by Teaching with Miss Maiuri at TPT

Both printables are a fun way for children to work with flowers … and great for fine-motor coordination as well! Note: I typically don’t use lamination for home use … except with playdough and/or messy work. These are cards I laminate so they can be used again and again. If you prefer, you could use clear page protectors instead of lamination.

Free Montessori-Inspired Flower Pack

Montessori-Inspired Flower Pack for DIY Cards and Counters, Number or Letter Matching, Number or Letter Basket, Bead Bar Work, Hands-on Math Operations, Number or Letter Salt/Sand Writing Tray, Letter Tracing, DIY Movable Alphabet, and Creative Writing (subscriber freebie, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password – or check your inbox if you’re already a subscriber).

Related Resources and Activities

Flower Science

• Montessori-Inspired Gardening Unit
• Montessori-Inspired Flower Activities
• Free Flower Printables and Montessori-Inspired Flower Math Activities
• Shoots and Sprouts Activities + Free Printable from Montessori By Mom
• Montessori Flower Identification and Arranging for Toddlers and Preschoolers
• Montessori Nature Tray Sorting and Counting for Toddlers and Preschooler
• Nature Walk and Nature Cutting Tray for Toddlers and Preschoolers
• Montessori Nature Tray with Magnification Work and Flower Arranging, Spring Book Lists for Preschool and Elementary Kids
• Garden Adventures Around the World
• Montessori Nature Tray with Vocabulary – Parts of the Plant
• Flower Cutting with Great-Grandma {Montessori on the Go}
• How to Help Children Experience Nature and Growing Plants Outdoors without a Garden
• How to: Montessori Indoor- or Small-Space Gardening in a DIY Sensory Table
•  Encouraging Kindness with Gardening Activities and the Kindness Elves
•  Life Cycle of a Bean Plant and Seed Planting Activities
• Montessori-Inspired Flower Activities with Spielgaben
• Free Tree Printables and Montessori-Inspired Tree Activities
• Free Montessori Botany Materials for a Gardening Unit
• Family Fun with Small-Space Gardening in a Vertical Planter
• Free Seasons of an Apple Tree Cutting Strips (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download)
• Free Tree Songs and Educational Videos {Learn about Trees, Apple Trees, and Seasons}
• Free Tree Do-a-Dot Printable (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download)
• Gardening/Botany Unit Study Pinterest Board

If you’d like ideas for calendar-based themes throughout April and May, see my April Themed Activities for Kids and my May Themed Activities for Kids.

Have fun learning about flowers!

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