NCERT solutions for Environmental Studies - Looking Around [English] Class 4 chapter 11 - The Valley of Flowers [Latest edition]

Now close your eyes and imagine that you have reached such a place. How does it feel? Which songs do you feel like singing?

Have you ever seen so many flowers grow together anywhere? where?

How many differently coloured flowers have you seen? Write their colours.

Now you were just left counting, weren’t you?

Are there any things in your house which have designs of flowers made on them – like clothes, sheets, vases, etc.?

Draw your own design in your notebook and colour it as well.

Look at the designs made by your friends.

Here are some pictures of flowers. Mark a (✓) on the flowers which you recognise. Write their names too if you know.

From the pictures given above, and other flowers that you know, give names of two which

Are there any trees or plants which never have any flowers? Find out and write.

1. Have you ever seen a board like this put up anywhere?
2. Do people pluck flowers even when this board is there?
3. Why do you think they do this?
4. Should they do this?
5. What would happen if everybody plucked flowers?

Children who can bring flowers may bring one or two flowers to class. Remember that you must collect only fallen flowers. Do not pluck any flowers. Make groups of three or four children and look at one flower carefully -

• What is the colour of the flower?
• What kind of a scent does it have?
• What does it look like – a bell, a bowl, a brush or anything else?
• Do these flowers grow in bunches?
• How many petals does it have?
• Are all the petals joined together or separate?
• Outside the petals, can you see any green leafy structure? How many are there?
• Inside the petals, in the middle of the flower, can you see some thin structures? Write its colour.
• When you touch these, do you find a powdery thing on your hands?

You must have seen buds on the plants. If there are any flower-bearing plants growing near your school or home, look carefully at their buds.

What differences do you find between a flower and a bud?

Draw the picture of a bud and its flower in your notebook.

Can you tell how many days will a bud take to bloom into a flower? Let us try and find out.

1. Choose a bud that is growing on a plant and look at it every day. Write the name of the plant.
2. When you first saw this bud, the date was _________. Now when the bud has bloomed into a flower, the date is _______. How many days did the bud take to become a flower?
3. Ask your friends the names of the different flowers that they have seen. How much time did it take their buds to become flowers?
4. Also, observe how many days the same flower took to dry.

What are the different ways we use flowers in our daily life?

Do you know that flowers can be eaten as well? Many flowers are cooked as vegetables.

Are flowers cooked in your home as a dry vegetable, a gravy dish or as a chutney? Find out which flowers are used for these.

Find out the names of any two flowers which are used for making medicines?

How is rose water used in your house? Is it used as medicine, sweets, lassi or something else? Find out and tell others.

Find out and write the names of some more flowers that are used for making colours.

Can you think of a colour of which there is no flower?

Write the names of such flowers which are used to make scents.

Have you ever read or heard any songs about flowers?

Let us sing this song -

“Good gardener, make for my Banna a garland of flowers;
She went looking for flowers in the garden in heaven;
Make a garland of flower buds if there are no flowers…”

“Good gardener, make for my Banna a garland of flowers;
She went looking for flowers in the garden in heaven;
Make a garland of flower buds if there are no flowers…”

Do you know when such songs are sung?

“Good gardener, make for my Banna a garland of flowers;
She went looking for flowers in the garden in heaven;
Make a garland of flower buds if there are no flowers…”

Do you or anybody else at home know other such songs?

Collect songs, poems, etc., on flowers. Write them down and put them up in the classroom.

Are any special flowers used on certain occasions/festivals by your elders? Make a list of different occasions and the flowers used at each.

Have you ever seen anyone selling flowers anywhere? If there are any flower-sellers nearby ask them these questions and write -

• What are the different flowers that they sell? Ask them the names of three flowers.
• Where do they bring these flowers from?
• Why do people buy flowers?
• In what forms do flower-sellers sell their flowers? Look at these pictures. Tick against those forms that you have seen.
  
  Any other form that you have seen -
• Have you seen flowers offered at many religious places?
• What do we do when they dry up?
• How will you use them?

Some flowers are used in different forms - like rose and marigold are used in garlands and as loose petals too.

• Find out the prices of these different forms.
  

  One flower	______
  One garland	______
  One bouquet	______

• Has the flower-seller learnt to make bouquets or a net of flowers from anybody? From whom?
• Would they like the other members of their family to do this work? Why?

You could do this in groups of five or six each.

• Collect flowers that have fallen from trees or plants and bring them to the class.
• Spread these flowers neatly between the sheets of an old newspaper.
• Make sure that the flowers do not touch each other.
• Now put a heavy object on the newspaper. Leave it pressed for ten to fifteen days at one place.
• After this, take out all the flowers very carefully and prepare a scrap book. You can take a used notebook or old newspapers for this.
• You can also use these dried flowers to make pretty cards.

Draw a flower of your choice and write its name below.