A little while ago I wrote a post on seed germination for kids. In that post, I told you I would do a follow up post on the activities we did as the seeds were growing, and about the results of which seeds grew fastest (or grew at all!) Wonderful news! You no longer need to wait with bated breath – the results are in!
One of the reasons I love doing seed germination for kids is how quickly the seeds start to grow. It was Day 2 this time when our first seed started to root. And by the next day there were sprouts too. By Day 5, three of our four seeds were growing strong. Here is a little run down of our results, though yours may of course be slightly different.
Day 1 – despite checking a gazillion times, nothing happened.
Day 2 – Snap Pea rooted
Day 3 – Snap Pea started to sprout and Bean started to root
Day 4 – Bean started to sprout and Swiss shard started to root (though it was tricky to see!)
Day 5 – Snap Pea, Bean, and Swiss chard were all rooted and sprouting
Day 6 – Bean overtook snap pea for the tallest and strongest plant.
Day 7 – All growing strong (except for the cucumber … )
There you have it! We had the best success with snap pea and bean seeds. Both grew fairly similarly, easily, and strongly. The roots to the snap pea were a bit easier to see, but the bean seed looks really neat as it sprouts.
So if I were forced to choose between a bean or a snap pea seed to germinate with my little ones, I would choose (after a long and restless nights sleep debating the choice) a snap pea. The root system on a snap pea is really fascinating – and that is why I do seed germination for kids in clear jars with paper towel – so they can see the root system.
Truthfully, we didn’t do too many activities while we were observing our seeds sprouting. It was mostly casual conversations. But conversations themselves can be one of the most powerful learning tools of all. We made predictions, comparisons, developed some new vocabulary, and most importantly marveled at how miraculous the whole thing is.
This is one of the very simplest ways to introduce little ones to seed germination. And it can be kept as simple as we kept it, or made to be quite the all encompassing endeavor! Whatever floats your boat. Our boats are currently floated in a shallow stream … some days a puddle …
This is a great activity because it is quick, easy, and almost completely fail-safe. Have fun!
The fail-safe ones are my favorite! lol! I love that this is just a casual experiment that still puts the roots (pun not intended) of science in their minds! 🙂
Really helpful for my sons science project. I appreciate you sharing a lot! Thank you. We aren’t finished with ours however it’s a little more complicated. But wanted to say again appreciate your share! Great job!