Follow the growth cycle of all seeds with this simple text that explains how seeds grow into plants.

Materials

• Pieces of fruits and/or vegetables that have seeds you can look at.
•  Food cards
•  Bag of beans, the largest ones you can find
•  Small ziplock per child.
•  Sequence cards for planting
•  Flower stencil

Vocabulary

Before Reading the Story

            Hold a bean seed in your hand and ask the children if they know what this is (a seed).  If they do not, tell them it is a seed.  Do you know what I can do with this seed? (You can plant it).  Guess what it will grow into when it is finished growing.  Only a bean seed can grow a bean.  Could this bean seed grow a watermelon? (No!)  Why not?  Hold up the cover of the book.  Look at the girls hands, what is in them? (Seeds)  Do they look the same?  (No).  I wonder what kind of seeds they are, let’s find out.

Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; grows in eagerness to learn about and discuss a growing range of topics, ideas, and tasks.

Reading the Story

            Use two different voices so the children can tell if the marigold or the pumpkin is speaking.

After Reading the Story

Go back through the book on a picture walk. Can the children tell you about the different pages and how the different seeds grow?

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; demonstrates abilities to retell and dictate stories from books and experiences; to act out stories in dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story.

Discovery

            Bring in a variety of produce that has a seed/seeds inside.  With the children hypothesis what the seed/s will look like and if there is more then one.  Cut the produce open to let the children see if they were correct.  You could try a fresh green bean, an apple, a banana, an avocado, a green pepper, and a zucchini.

Science/Scientific Methods & Skills; begins to describe and discuss predictions, explanations, and generalizations based on past experiences.

            Have the children fold a paper towel and then wet it.  Have them put it into a ziplock bag with one of the large bean seeds.  Check back tomorrow to see what has happened to the seed. Best done towards the end of the week so that when the children come back on Monday there should be some sprouting seeds. When the seeds start to sprout, you can make a journal or have the children use a ruler to measure how big it has gotten. This experiement will take place over a week or so.

Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships. AND Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; shows progress in using standard and non-standard measures for length and area of objects.

Music and movement

            Teach the children the poem, Dig a Little Hole. Have the children act it out as they recite.

You dig a little hole and you put the seed in.

Then you cover it with dirt and let the sun shine in.

Add a little water and keep it fed,

Pretty soon a little plant will show it’s head.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; demonstrates increasing ability to attend to and understand conversations, stories, songs, and poems.

Teach the children the song, The Farmer Plants His Seeds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRhGOdqWIIo

The Farmer plants the seeds,

The farmer plants the seeds.

Heigh-ho the dairy-o The farmer plants the seeds.

The sun comes out to shine…

The rain begins to fall…

The seeds begin to grow…

The produce is here…

The farmer picks his crops…

And now it’s time to eat…

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe,, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Blocks

            Tape produce pictures to blocks and have the children pretend that they are making a garden. Can they name the different kinds of produce?

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; shows growing creativity and imagination in using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations.

Art

            Put out flower stencils that the children can trace around on manilla files or thin cardboard.  Show the children how to take small tissue paper squares and make balls out of them.  Glue the balls inside the flower design.  The children can then use crayons to make stems and leaves. Encourage the children to make a pattern with the 12 petal shapes.

Mathematics/Pattern & Measurement; enhances abilities to recognize, duplicate, and extend simple patterns using a variety of materials. AND Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops growing strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, and hammer.

Library and Writing

            Cut out pictures from garden magazines.  Let the children glue them onto a group collage.  Title it, All Kinds of Things grow From Seeds.  Make sure that the pictures include flowers, trees, fruits and vegetables.  When finished, hang it up in your classroom to talk about all the things that come from seeds while waiting for lunch.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; grows in hand-eye coordination in building with blocks, putting together puzzles, reproducing shapes and patterns, stringing beads, and using scissors. AND Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; chooses to participate in an increasing variety of tasks and activities.

Sand and water

            Put dirt in the table and large bean seeds.  The children can pretend to plant these in rows with a spoon. (We did this one week and when we came back on Monday, several of the seeds had taken root and begun to grow). Encourage the children to sing The Farmer Plants His Seeds as the dig in the dirt.

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; shows growing creativity and imagination in using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations.

Dramatic play

            As the children play in the kitchen, ask them if they can show you some of the play foods you have that would have seeds inside.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe,, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Math and Manipulatives

            Education.com has a nice set of plant life cycle cards for the children to put together in order. If you have other sequencing cards, put those out as well. https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/plant-life-cycle-cards/?cid=50.300

Science/Scientific Knowledge; shows increased awareness and beginning understanding of changes in materials and cause-effect relationships.

Outdoor Play

            Plant seeds.  Bring in the materials you need to plant seeds either into cups or into the ground.  Children enjoy planting.  What and where you plant will depend upon the time of the year and the region in which you live.

Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; chooses to participate in an increasing variety of tasks and activities.

Transitions

            Have the children identify produce pictures before they may leave to the next place. (Kerry, do you know what this fruit is called?    Where does a fruit grow? Do you know how it grows, on a tree, a vine, underground?)

Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; develops increasing abilities to understand and use language to communicate information, experiences, ideas, feelings, opinions, needs, questions; and for other varied purposes.

Resources