Monday Motivation: Spring into Science

Remember that time I said I was starting a new weekly series called “Monday Motivation,” which was to be all about lesson ideas, freebies, etc. (You may insert bewildered look). Yah… I figured as much! We recently sold our home and bought a new home, so that has consumed ~~most~~ all of my free time. The good news is that we’re all moved into the new home, so things will start settling down soon hopefully!

Today I want to share a super fun, and super easy hands-on science lesson that I did with my kiddos. The idea is nothing earth shattering and I must certainly give credit to my 6th grade science teacher for it, BUT I want to remind you of this lesson possibility none-the-less.

Our reading unit the past 2 weeks (and this current week) has been all about plants – fits so perfectly with Spring, right?? Anyway, we have been incorporating this theme into science and decided to plant our seeds to view the life cycle of plants and discuss plant parts (again, nothing earth shattering).

What we did differently is how we planted them. See, I want my kiddos to see ALL the parts of the plant during this process and it’s often, if not impossible, to see the roots once they begin growing unless you pull the plant out of the soil. So what did we do? We wrapped them in a wet (soaked) paper towel, placed them in a Ziploc baggie, and taped them to the window!

A little more back ground… I chose to use pea seeds because I thought it would be interesting to get my kiddos take on what they thought the seed was before I told them. Here’s a look at the suggestions and tally chart they came up with.

I thought for sure one of my kiddos would recognize it as a pea, but turns out my kiddos had a misconception that a vegetable (or part) could not be a seed. So, we went ahead and cleared that right up!

A helpful hint if you choose to plant peas as well, soak them in room temperature water for just a few hours immediately before planting. It helps them germinate more quickly – we planted ours on Friday and on Monday we had sprouts.

Here’s a sneak peek at our bags hanging in the window (Friday was a dreary day in Dallas for sure).

So easy to set up and so easy to unwrap and check out the parts of the seedling.

Today we went ahead and reviewed the parts of a plant, what plants need to grow, the life cycle, etc. Then we dove in for some hands-on discovery of the seedlings. Love it!

The bags had accumulated some moisture inside since we sealed them. This was perfect for continuing our very introductory discussion of the water cycle.