Tuesday 12 May 2015

Home School - Lifecycles - Plants


We are keen gardeners and this time of year we are usually caught outside doing something. With this in mind when it came to one of our new terms Home school topics it seemed to make sense to start with plants.

We started with a selection of plants that we could see different results with:

Strawberries

Tomatoes

Radish

Sun Flowers



We took the seeds out of the packets and examined them to see the differences: William noticed that the came in different sizes and shapes.


We read the instructions and discovered that each type of seed needed to be treated differently; some needed to be deep down and some scattered lightly over the surface with a small amount of soil.



William realised that some of these plants would grow taller than others and subsequently chose different size pots depending on what we were planting.








We briefly discussed the different stages that each seed will go through but if I am completely honest I don't think William quite grasped it so will wait for each stage to happen and explain it to him that way. He did understand though that the roots will take food from the soil and that we will need to water it.

We have a couple more projects within the lifecycle of plants to show you soon.

Both boys have always enjoyed planting different seeds although I am sure that this is more to do with getting dirty with soil. However, this is a great activity to do with small children and especially one to do around now!








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8 comments:

Kim Carberry said...

What a great activity!
I planted some strawberries ages ago and so far there is nothing. I am a hopeless gardener...I hope you have more luck x

Alan said...

My youngest boy went through a phase of planting apple aeeds , orange pips even sweet corn. He soon got bored when a plant didn't appear a week later.
I'll be keeping an eye to see how the plants do.

Martyn Kitney said...

We've always done well with ours. I have no idea why though! The boys had great fun though.

Martyn Kitney said...

Haha that's part of the problem with them growing. I've got a back up plan with that though which hopefully you'll see soon ;)

Plutonium Sox said...

I think that plants are a really important think for children to learn about for many reasons. Libby is starting to show an interest in gardening now, so I will probably make the effort next year to have a little patch of garden for her to look after with me. I do love the sound of homeschooling because you can make sure that things like this are included in the children's education.

Martyn Kitney said...

That's sound great Natalie. I'm sure she would love it.
This is actually a curriculum topic but I decided to extend it further because we could in home school. That simple really. Rather than just learning about it in one of two lessons we can really delve into this particular aspect as well as others along the way. Thanks for commenting.

Mum to a Monster said...

This is a great idea. We currently have a sunflower growning in the windowsill

Martyn Kitney said...

Awesome! We have ours growing....really need to check on them :/ thanks for commenting.