Aunt Flora

Aunt Flora and Joey

Joey loves aunt Flora.  Flora is a bubbly teen age girl.  Joey loves it when she visits them.  She plays with  Joey  and tells him all sort of stories.  Ever since birth, Flora has had a love for nature – flowers in particular.  She has learned a lot about them in some of her courses  and also find fun to explore them.

               Joey just turned three, and aunt Flora came for his birthday celebration.   Joey got a lot of toys and some clothes as presents for his birthday. The aunt Flora had a unique gift for him.  She had made him a book of flowers.  It was not a run of the mill book that you can buy from a store.  It was a special book.

              Most of the guest had left.  Joey picked up the flower book and gave a big hug to aunt Flora while asking, “Will you read this book to me, please ?”

              Aunt Flora:  Of course, I would love to read this book  to you.  First, let me tell you about it.  What is the best part of a flower?

              Joey: It is the colorful wings on these flowers.

              Aunt Flora: Yes, these bright colored wings are called petals.  They cover the inside parts of the flower.  This book is about how many petals are there in a flower.

              Joey: I don’t know.  How many ?

              Aunt Flora: Each flower has different number of petals.  First here is the picture of Calla Lily.  It has only one white petal. The book also shows you to count on your fingers.  It shows 1 which is one when written as a word.  This one petal wraps around.

              Joey:  That’s pretty. What is the next one ?

              Aunt Flora: First, I want to hold your finger and say one.

              Joey: One.

              Aunt Flora:  Next is a Day Flower which has two petals.  The picture also shows you how to count 1 and 2 on your fingers.

              Joey: I count on my fingers 1 and 2. The petals on these flowers look like two wings of an angel.

              Aunt Flower:  The next one is a White lily with 3 petals.

              Joey counted 1,2, 3 on his fingers and then said:  This one has three wings.  The angel has two wings on the side and one on its head.  The next one looks like a crucifer.

              Aunt Flora:  Yes, it is a Mustard Flower and has four petals.  Look the picture also shows 1,2,3,4   on the fingers.  Next is a hand with all the fingers being counted one, two, three, four and five. It is called China Rose.

              Joey: I have seen lots of flowers with 5 petals.  The book you gave me last time had stars drawn in it.  The star also had five wings.  I guess, the next one has one more petal.

              Aunt Flora: Yes, smarty pants.  It is a flower called Pride of India and has 6 petals.  I think we should take a break now.

              Joey got up, jumped around for  a bit, grabbed a cookie and then came back to aunt Flora.

              Aunt Flora:  I see that you are ready for the next flower. Count on your fingers – one, two, three, four, five, six and then seven.  The next one is a bright white flower of Rue Anemone with seven petals. The next flower is the Cotton Candy Flower and it has 8 petals.

              Joey counted on his fingers from 1 to 8 and then gave a smirk saying, “Cotton candy. It would be good for trick or treat for candy on Halloween.  What is the next one ?”

              Aunt Flora:  The next is a flower of the Canopy plant. Sometimes, it has 9 petals and at other times it has 10.  Now you count from 1 to 10 on your fingers.  I have to go.  We will do the last page and the Challenge on another day.

              With this, Aunt Flower left.  Joey played around, and then sat with his dad and the book.  Three days later, he phoned Aunt Flora saying that with his dad he had done the next page which had flowers with 11, 12, 13 and 21 petals.  He wanted her to come and do the Challenge with him.

Challenge

              Aunt Flora got a bouquet of a dozen roses.  Count how many roses were in the bouquet.

Joey sat with Aunt Flora and counted on his fingers and said that there 12 roses in the bouquet.

Supplementary

Count the number of days in a week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Footnote:

For parents who may want to explore more, here are the botanical names along with the common names.

Calla lily:  Zantedeschia aethiopica

Day Flower: Commelina communis

White Lily: Trillium grandiflorum

Mustard: Brassica napus var. napus

China Rose:  Hibiscus rosa sinensis

Pride of India: Lagerstroemia speciosa

Rue anemone: Thalictrum thalictroides

Cotton candy flower: Genus Clematis

Canopy plant: Paris japonicum

Heartleaf Arnica: Amica cordifolia

Houseleek: Genus