Parts Of A Plant: Seeds

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Parts of a Plant Lesson: Seeds

     We started with Nutrientsforlife.org's Video, Lesson 1: Plants Around You. See the video HERE.

•    After watching the video, we went on a nature walk to gather seeds from plants around us. We were actually surprised at all the seeds we found. It was actually closer to winter time than fall. I just had her get a little from each plant we found.  

• When we got home, she set all of the seeds together in a pile. I asked her if she could separate all the seeds into 2 piles. She separated them by round seeds and flat seeds. I asked her if she could separate them into 3 piles, and she decided it should be by size. 
• Next activity was separating them back with their own seeds in a muffin tin. Some resembled each other so much, she got out her magnifying glass to tell them apart. 
• I found a neat 'Seed Graph' for her to organize the data she collected on which plant did she gather the most seeds from. you can find it HERE (mpm school supplies actually has a lot of cool ideas and links to more cool ideas) She glued the different seeds to the bottom of the graph and then counted them up and filled in the correct number on the graph. The graph went into her Gardening Portfolio. 
  

• She really liked checking out the seeds under the magnifying glass. From my seed stash, I got out lettuce seeds and let her make her own observations. She recorded her findings in her Science Notebook. Don't have a magnifying glass? I found ours at our local Dollar General in the school/stationary section. but you can also find one on Amazon HERE
• While checking out a Time Lapse Video of a Seed Growing, my daughter said it would be cool to plant our own seed and watch it grow in normal time. Great Idea! I found an old square aquarium and we filled it with our seed starter mix. Then she placed 4 English Pea seeds against the the side of the aquarium. We watered it and watched the seeds grow. She recorded what she witnessed in her Science journal as well. 

• It was not as easy to see as the video, but we enjoyed it just the same. you can use a variety of seeds for this experiment. Pinto beans and pumpkin seeds work great too! You can also use a small jar filled with moist paper towels with the seed up against the glass. 
• The next activity we did involved fermenting pinto beans. We placed a few dried pinto beans into a shallow bowl of water and let it sit a few days, adding water as needed. I asked my daughter to predict what she thought was going to happen, she recorded this in her science journal. After the pinto showed signs of growth, we dissected them. She drew out what she found and labeled the parts of the bean. We did not get any photos of this lesson, but I borrowed a couple from a homeschooling friend of mine that inspired this lesson for us. Her children are a little older so they have labeled a lot more than we did, with more scientific terms. Just another example how you can use one lesson for many different levels of children. Thank you Mary and the Butler Children for allowing us to use your amazing photos. 
  
  
  
  
•  If those words are too advanced for your kiddo, there is a simpler worksheet HERE

There are more activities and worksheets at 
Nutrients For Life

Can Teach: Science

NeoK12

We hope you enjoyed Parts of a Plant: Seeds lessons. Other pages in the series, can be found here:

Parts of a Plant: Tendrils

Parts of a Plant: The Stem

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online. 

Portfolios and Journals

  

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        I have received a lot of messages asking to hear more about my daughter's portfolio and journal for science. She has a journal and folder for every subject, but, these two are our favorites. Everything plant related we have studied goes into them, although, her science spiral is for everything science related. Let us take a look inside!

 She was very proud of her cover artwork.

Diagram from www.uic.edu

We talked about the parts of a tomato plant and them drew her own plant on a separate piece of paper. Then she labeled them with help of the first photo. Both papers went in to her Plant Portfolio.

After a nature walk, she came in and made leaf rubbings to study the different types of veins each leaf had. 

She chose the leaf she liked best, made a leaf rubbing of it, and then labeled the parts of the leaves.

When we planted our tomato plants, she measured then every other day and then wrote her findings on the Excel paper she created. 

     Also in her portfolio are the different work sheets and printable information she learned about.

Information on plants from 'Instructor Web'

A Quiz from NeoK12 she printed out. 

    

   Inside of her 'Science Notebook' are journaling questions, written notes from books we read from the library that she did not want to forget, recorded observations and drawings. For example, when we were doing our 'Winter Tomato' experiment. Not only did she put her measurements in the Excel table, she also drew and wrote about the progress and growth of the plant. 

Water Filtration Project

 Learning about Container Gardens

How to Grow a Garden

   Portfolios and Notebooks are not just for science. They are great when you are working on a 'Theme" study unit and are pulling from various sources. Math, literature, reading, and geography can also have their own spiral notebook and folder.

At the beginning of the school season, our local Big Box Store has these and other supplies for super cheap! Stock up!

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online. 

Edible Landscape

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     I've been seeing a lot of posts about 'Grow Gardens, Not Lawns.' This year I decided I would try my hand at it. I have ran into a few problems, but all in all, I am pleased. I chose a couple of beds that were already in my yard and planted herbs and veggies. 

     This one only worked out 1/2 okay. Originally, we planted dill on one side of our peach tree and carrots and spinach on the other. A little gopher/mole type thing decided we had planted it for him, and ate all of the spinach and carrots. (Insert sad face here) He never touched the dill and drowned in a bowl of water about a week later. Too late for our poor carrots and spinach. I can't wait to harvest my dill and then I will try again with the lettuce and spinach for the cooler months. Not sure if I will ever try carrots again though.. I've never had any luck. 

     This is as much of our container gardening/recycle project just as much as edible landscape. I found an old tractor rim with the center cut out at my mom's house that was abandoned by my brother in law. I loved finding it! It was pretty heavy but I managed to get it in the back of my truck all by myself. My daughter and I planted a few sweet onions, lettuce and wild onions in it. Then after the gopher/mole thing ate my other spinach, we planted spinach in it as well. The lettuce has done better here than anywhere else, but the spinach, not too well. There is also a redbud tree growing in it. It is a temporary home till we decide where we want to put it. Might not be too bad there though. 

     In our front yard we have a 'mystery' plant growing! It is a mystery because my seedlings got dumped over and mixed up before they were able to be planted. The leaves and blooms are huge but the fruit is not producing well. The only ones that even started to grow died out before I could tell what they were. I thought it was zucchini but the fruit looked like little round balls. This is the area of the front yard that scored very high in our 'Soil Sample' project. Maybe it just needs some more time. There has also been a lack of bees in our yard this year, even with the flowering privet trees. Could that be why the flowers are not forming fruit? Also in the photo are my little flower pots with cilantro, spinach and lettuce in them. 

     There is another bed around a tree that I started asparagus in but it a new growth and photos do not turn out well. The plant is thin a wispy looking. Hard to see what you are looking at.   

   Well, that concludes my edible landscape. I know it is not much, but its a start. I love this idea along with container gardening. However, I am determined NOT to buy any containers to grow in. Recycle, Reuse, Re-purpose is our motto!  I would love to hear about and see your edible landscape! One day, I hope to have so many containers, my place looks like this :) 

https://www.facebook.com/GrowFoodNotLawns

http://theselfsufficientliving.com/vegetables-that-grow-well-in-a-container-or-pots/

Disclosure: This post contains no affiliate links, however, I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online.