Moody, Broody Hens

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     A while back, my cousin gave us a beautiful pair of Jersey Giant hens. They were 18 months old and were laying eggs. He said that Jersey Giants were slower to mature but made great layers. Zoey and I Ooohed and Aaaahed over them for days. They are solid black with bright red combs and piercing black eyes. They would not let us get near them though. My cousin said they were very friendly with his family and I hoped they just needed a little time to get used to us. 
     In the mean time, I thought this would be a good time to have Zoey do a little research project. Zoey got on our Chromebook and looked up 'Jersey Giant Chickens.' We talked about what 'Pros and Cons' were. She wrote her information in her new spiral notebook. This is what she found. 

Pros

Docile, beautiful, very large, stunning beauty, very hardy, size tends to deter predators

Cons

Slower growth, slightly poorer egg production, they eat a lot

12 Facts About Jersey Giants

1. They were created in the late 1800s by John and Thomas Black by cross breeding 3 differrent kinds of chickens.
2. Their name came from the state they were created in, New Jersey, and their size, Giant.
3. They are slow growers.
4. Jersey Giants eat A LOT.
5. They are a good breed for the cold.
6. They like to sit on their eggs and hatch them.
7. Jersey Giants are good mommies.
8. They are a dual purpose bird. They lay eggs and they are big enough to make a good meal.
9. They are very soft. 
10. Their eggs are a light to medium brown color.
11. They lay extra large eggs.
12. Jersey Giants tend to get along well with your other pets.

    

     How are our Jersey Giant Hens? Well... They are moody. The hens HATE our kitten and attack him every time he follows us to the coop. They still do not even like us after months of trying to be their friends. We can barely get near them. It has to be dusk or night time for us to be able to pet them, but, they are oh so soft! 

     Their eggs are a darker color than what our other hens lay. Can you tell which eggs are from our Jersey Giants? Hint: they are the larger and darker ones. ;)

     A couple of months ago, one of our hens went broody. What does that mean? Well like a woman hearing her biological clock ticking, a broody hen is determined to sit on her eggs and hatch her some babies. You can learn more about broody hens HERE. Honestly, since we just brought home 3 chicks from our schools hatching experiment, I was really hoping they would get over it. We had enough chickens already. 

Let's see...

3 Chicks from daycare. Unsure of breed or sex yet.

1 Road Island Red Hen

2 Jersey Giant Hens

1 Silver Spangled Hamburg Rooster

1 Bantam Hen

9 Plymouth Rock Cross hens and roosters waiting to go to freezer camp. 

     So basically, we had 17 chickens at this time and were not wanting anymore chicks! Besides, we no longer had a mature rooster to fertilize the eggs. After three months, this hen was just not getting over her 'baby fever' and we felt so bad for her, we had to do something. 

     While at work one day, I was telling some of the girls about my broody chicken and not wanting more chicks. My friend has raised chickens in the past and said she would take any babies if I decided to get some fertile eggs. Okay then, why not? Let's do this! First thing I did, was call a local Ag Extension agent to see where I could get some fertile eggs. Their lady was not local, and wanted $8 a dozen. What? By the time I paid for gas, I would have spent $20 for 12 fertile eggs that may or may not hatch. (You remember our luck with hatching chicks right? If not, read the article HERE.) I got on Facebook and asked around some local farm animal groups, but all eggs were to expensive. Kinda wish I knew this when we had a rooster! Finally, a friend of mine messaged me and said she had A TON of fertile Bantam eggs. She met me half way between her house and mine. Instead of a dozen, she gave me 36 eggs and would not let me pay her for them. Now that is an amazing friend! 

    Now at this point, a blogger would have thought to take pictures of 36 small eggs that fit into a quart size baggy. Nope, I forgot! And you would have thought that I would have remembered to get a photo of the eggs in the nest, but no. However, there is a good reason for that. The hen decided she would not sit in the hen box that is on a top shelf like she had been sitting in for 3 months. She suddenly wanted to lay them in the bottom stall. Great.. I transferred the eggs from the top box to the bottom one, and slowly, carefully, placed them next to the scary broody hen. (Yes, scary. She tried to bite my hand off till she figured out I was giving her eggs!) 

Easy Momma! I'm trying to help you out here!

    We marked the calendar for 3 weeks. Time to wait to see what happens... Strangely enough, the other Jersey Giant hen decided she wanted to sit on the eggs as well. We checked on the girls daily. Rarely did we see them come off of their nest. When they did, it was only one at a time, and only for food and drink. When we got near them, the made warning noises to tell us not to come too close. Trust me, we didn't! These ladies are moody and broody! 

    About 4 days till the due date, we recounted the days to make sure our chicks would be hatching the coming weekend. Saturday came, I was in the garden, Alex was helping me with making more bamboo stakes for the tomatoes, Zoey had just gone inside to journal about our Potato Bucket Reveal, and Mike was checking the coop for eggs. I just happened to look over and see him emerge from the coop, cutest smirk on his face, and his hands cupped together, holding something very tiny. A chick! The three of us pet the tiny baby chick for a moment and then decided to surprise Zoey inside the house, rather than call her out. 

This silly girl is extremely excited! 

  Our broody, moody hens hatched out 17 eggs in total. We will be keeping a few. Yes, I know I said we didn't want anymore, but it's called 'Chicken Math' and you really can't deny Chicken Math. (Seriously, it is a real thing!) The rest will be going to my friend at work. 

    Today, Zoey and I went out to try to get some pictures of the chicks. It is hard to do, because, the mommies won't let us get near them. Not even one! They start freaking out and then the babies freak out. Suddenly, there are chicks running crazy like all over the place and it is just a crazy silly mess. We try to just watch them at a distance as not to upset them. Lately, hawks have decided to make our little farm their hunting site. We lost Little Red and Mike's Silver Spangled Hamburg rooter. (The one that refused to leave his side in the garage when we got out of the hospital. Insert sad face here for both.) AND, I swear there were 19 chicks at one point.... 

We did brave getting close enough to get a few pictures for you! Look! :D

So there you go! SUCCESS with a chicken hatch! Will we be doing it again? Yes, I think so. My friend said she would be happy to donate eggs at any time. We will just have to wait and see when our Jersey Giants get moody and broody again! 

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. Please note, I am not affiliated with, nor do I receive compensation from Wikipedia, McMurray Hatchery, or The Chicken Chick. I just like their pages and refer to them often in my own daily use. I doubt they even know I link to them on my blog from time to time. :)

(Not So) Wordless Wednesday #1

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     I was going to try to do one of those "Wordless Wednesdays" you see on other blogs. You know, when they post one picture and it pretty much explains it all. No words needed. Sometimes there are pictures and other stuff I would like to share with you, but they really do not equal a whole blog post. But.. Apparently, I am not a wordless type of gal! :D 

     I do want to share my salad for lunch today with you. Although, I used a bagged salad mix, (lettuce just refuses to grow for me, and when it does, it is bitter) the sugar snap peas and cherry tomatoes are fresh from our garden! We are not getting a whole lot of peas, (I think it is the crazy Texas heat) but we have gotten several snacks from our plant. 

     The cherry tomatoes have produced like crazy and we have enough to munch on while walking about the property, AND we have a small bowl of them sitting on the counter. Zoey gathers them for us every other day. Do you remember my cherry tomato plant that was in the 5 gallon bucket? It got so big we had to transplant it into the ground. It is not so big and beautiful anymore, but it still produces yummy tomatoes! 
     So that is about it! While I go eat my salad, I am going to head on over to the Homestead Blog Hop and see what's happening! Come join me! 

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.

New Year's Resolutions To Keep

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    New Year's Resolutions like loosing weight, eat healthier, quit smoking, pay off bills, not cuss, become a better friend, wife, mother never seem to be fulfilled in the coming year. We all try, we all promise, we all seem to come short of reaching our goals. (At least, that is what happens to me.) This year I have resolved to just 'Do more.'  
   Do more. Simple right? That is what I did this past year. I just did more. 

• When I started homeschooling my daughter in the fall of 2013, we had to resolve to do more with less. It was Zoey's idea to start the winter garden and to start doing more on our own. Her idea to become more self sufficient echoed my own dreams. The dreams I was not brave enough to embark on until a child wishing to learn homesteading as part of her homeschool sparked a revolution in our home. We were always mini 'Preppers' but we had not yet ventured into self sufficiency.   
• In trying to become more self sufficient, I turned my house into a homestead, sewed a larger garden, and learned a bit about food preservation. We began raising our own chickens. Now we eat our eggs and the meat we butcher. All of this has helped us to eat healthier. 
• Also, homesteading and being more self sufficient was a huge step for us. My motto of 'If you are going to Talk the Talk, you better Walk the Walk' was put into effect, full force. We have learned more than just homesteading. We have built pens and a coup from recycled materials. We have upped our preps, gear and emergency supplies. We have practiced and improved our skills with knives, bows and arrows. We budgeted and learned to reuse, recycle and re-purpose. 
• I didn't resolve to loose weight, I got up and moved more. For several years, I have worked in an office 2 days a week, behind a computer. When I am off, I have a sewing business that keeps me sitting behind a machine several hours a day. Zoey and I did lots of projects that got me up and outside of the house. MOVING! That makes a huge difference. 
• We joined a Homeschool Co-op. One thing Zoey missed the most about school was friends to have class with. I taught her science class. We both made great friends we love and adore. I will be teaching 2 science classes this coming year. EXCITING! 
• We brought up Zoey's reading level by researching all of the stuff we wanted to learn about this year. Foraging, food preservation, raising animals for food and the science of gardening were on her top interests list. Her want for knowledge on these subjects helped to open a whole new world of reading for her. She is an excellent researcher as well.

   So what will we 'Do More' of in 2015? Most of it has been yet to be determined. What ever sparks my daughter's learning creativity I presume. We have already talked about a few things, though.

• Wild Edible Foraging and using herbs for medicinal and edible use are at the top of our list. We will start taking classes at the Star Dragonfly Herbal Company. It is once a month and just a few towns over from us. Zoey also wants to start buying herbs from them each time we go. We have also bought various seeds to start our own herbal/medicinal garden. Zoey will also incorporate a butterfly fairy garden into the garden. 
• Our garden last year did not have a high yield. We believe this is because the area we grew in was not as nutrient rich as we had hoped. We have already done several soil amendments, and we will continue to compost and fertilize the garden area with the animals droppings. We will also be growing more in the front yard. Hubby has decided this was okay since the Mystery Plant did so well. We will also do some more Edible Landscaping.  
• Other classes we will be taking outside of our homeschool are bushcraft classes at our local state lake park. They offer things like using a compass, tracking wildlife, hiking, tree and plant identification, and geocaching treasure hunts. They also have a Dutch Oven cooking expo coming up. They are bringing in people to show us how to cook using cast iron Dutch Ovens. 
• That brings us to obtaining items to add to our preps and learning how to use them. We got a Pressure Canner for Christmas that we look forward to using soon. A meat grinder and slicer, flour mill, a new set of Cast Iron Cookware, Herbalogy books and kits, and a nice medical kit are just a few of the items we would like to add to our preps. This also means we will learning how to use them as well. Will we get all of these items this year? Probably not. But, this is a life long list, not a Must Have This Year list. We will add to the list as we knock stuff off. 
• Our storage area is very lacking. Our house has no room for storage in it. Zoey and I, with help from the hubby, will research new and clever ways of utilizing the space we have. We plan on doing a lot of canning this year, and yet we have no where to put anything else... hmmm... Clever ideas anyone? 
• We will practice more on our bows and maybe, just maybe, learn to hunt. This is one area our house is very lacking on. Hubby hunted with his father as a child, but has not as an adult. The fees for hunting licenses has kept us from it. Also, what do we do with the meat if we have killed something? So hunting and meat preservation is on our list of hopeful To Dos. 

     Our list seems a bit long. If we don't complete some of it, that is okay. We are not pledging to do all of it. Just to 'Do More!' What is on your list? 

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. 

When I Grow Up: A Writing Assignment

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    In her writing class at the Co-op, my daughter was asked, "What do you want to do when you grow up?" This is her writing assignment paper....
                 I will wake up at 3 a.m. every morning. My husband will make me pancakes for breakfast with faces on them. I will have an off grid home in the mountains of Colorado. I will have 4 kids and I will homeschool them and teach them how to cook. My home will have 10 rooms and 2 bathrooms. My yard will be 400 acres. There will be a lake with fish in it. There will be a boat for me and my kids to fish in it. We will hunt for our meat and grow our own vegetables. My property will have 5 barns. The first barn will be for gardening and food. The second barn will be full of wood and solar panels to power my home. Me and my husband will cut down trees for the firewood.  The third barn will be for sewing and I will make my kids blankets and clothing. I will also make blankets to donate for people who do not have a home. The forth barn will be a play house for my kids with couches, a t.v. and lots of arts and crafts stuff. Animals will be in the 5th barn for when it is cold or rainy. We will have pigs, chickens, bunnies, deer, sheep, cows and horses. Our animals will have their own fenced in yards with gates. We will have a German Sheppard for our dog. My horse will be black and I will put blue stripes in my horses hair. I will have several freezers to put my food into. I will have a big diesel truck that is loaded with canned and freeze dried foods. They will be in alphabetical order so they are easy to find. I will cook all sorts of foods. My family will eat dinner together every night. My family will be prepared for all sorts of emergencies. If something bad were to happen, I would go get my Mom and Dad from Texas so they could be safe and live with us.  I will go to bed at 10 p.m. and pray to God every night. 

All I can say is..... <3

Getting More From Your Chicken: Freezing Chicken Bone Broth

    

     Small steps to being self sufficient! Raising, butchering, cooking, and preserving our own meat! We sent a rooster to freezer camp yesterday. Today, I roasted it and we ate it for dinner. It was the best rooster we have had so far! Three of us ate from it tonight, and I froze up 2 meal size packages of chicken for future meals. Right now, I have bone broth simmering on the stove. I plan on freezing it in different size containers and then repackaging them into a gallon size baggie when the are frozen. I did this last time, and used muffin and quart size frozen broth for things like gravy, soups and mashed potatoes, or some good ol' broth for a cold!. Mmmmm... my house smells so good!


What I put in my chicken bone broth:

1. 1 full chicken carcass broke up as best as possible. Breaking the bones helps to insure you get all of the healthy bone goodness. My carcass came from roasting a whole chicken.
2. About 1 cup of diced raw carrots that were from our Thanksgiving dinner a couple of days ago.
3. About 1 cup of diced raw celery, also from the veggie tray.
4. 1 clove of garlic, chopped and smashed
5. 1 small onion diced (it was about the size of an egg.)
6. Salt and Pepper to taste.

Next, I simmered it for about 3 hours. The remaining chicken meat had fallen off of the bones. The garlic and onions had dissolved into the broth and the carrots and celery were super tender. I strained the broth into another pot. Zoey and I munched on the celery and carrots for a bit before adding the strained portion into the pigs slop bowl. The bones went into the garden to compost. 

I dipped out 2 cup portions into recycled lunch meat packaging. These are very convenient when using for recipes. You can also dip out larger portions as well.

When they were frozen, I just popped them out of the plastic bowls and put them in labeled gallon freezer bags.

I also measured out 1 cup servings into muffin tins. I DO NOT recommend using disposable tins unless you just do not care about reusing them. When you pop the little frozen broth circles out it crushes them. Warming the bottom of them for a second might help with preserving them. I do not have any other kind of muffin pans. I picked these up at a local grocery store for .88 cents each. I would prefer to keep them but it will take a bit of work to get them back into shape.. We will see if my patience holds out.

Once Frozen, I placed them in a gallon freezer bag as well. Now when I need a quick pick me up when I start to feel sickly, I can just pop one in a coffee cup and microwave it. Although, the nutrients would be better preserved if I put it in a sauce pan to reheat. These work great for making mashed potatoes and gravies as well. 

     I would really like to learn how to can my chicken broth, but honestly, I'm a bit 'chicken' to try the pressure canner my friend loaned to me. Like I said, baby steps... At least I'm walking the walk towards self sufficiency... baby steps or not! 
What are you doing to become more self sufficient?

Days Like These

 

 
     My day started out at 7:30 a.m.. Might not seem early to you, but considering I am a night owl, it is the perfect early time to get up for me. I drank 2 cups of coffee, checked my emails, and surfed the web before getting my daughter up at 8. She was not ready for breakfast yet, so we headed outside to feed the animals. She fed the chickens and rabbit; I fed the dogs and pig. It is supposed to get very cold this week. Since we were already outside, we decided to clean out the chicken coop and give them fresh hay. We also gave the rabbit some fresh bedding.
     Moving to the garden, we picked all we could pick off of our tomato plants. They were not as big as we would have liked, but they are still something! Since we had a horrible luck growing tomatoes in our garden this year, we planted a couple of plants my awesome neighbor, Bree, gave us late last summer. Her grandmother found several volunteer plants grow on the side of her house. Hoping for a mild fall season, we decided to go ahead and plant them. We planted them in the front yard where I really really wanted to grow the garden this last spring. The ground was raised with mulch and allowed to break down for several years. Our fall season was nearly over before it started. Good thing I also planted some of the tomato plants in pots. We pulled in the 2 potted tomato plants, along with the avocado tree, apple mint, green onions and the spinach pot. 

     About the time we were finishing bringing in the plants, Hubby drove up from work. His job is from 3:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and a today we would get to spend the rest of the day with him. We all had sandwiches together for brunch, then we watched a YouTube video on mountain properties for sale. After, we all went back out into the yard to do our various tasks. We helped Hubby a bit with making the new pen for our pig, Porky.     

     When we asked what would better help him get ready for the cold snap, he said we could bring in the wood. My daughter and I drove the little tahoe around our property. She got her first behind the wheel driving lesson. She is a natural. We decided we had not gathered enough wood off of our property, so we drove around the county road. Yes, I was behind the wheel this time. We found lots of good wood. Some of it was already cut wood that the tree trimmers that work for the electric company had trimmed and cut a little while back. Some of it was just old tree limbs that had fallen onto the side of the road. We filled the whole back of the truck! When we returned home, we unloaded our finds into the garage, but left the stuff that needed to be cut outside of the garage so Hubby could cut it with the chainsaw. 
     My daughter and I decided it we were too cold to work outside anymore. We came in, cleaned up and got our jammies on! We were also starting to get a bit hungry again and decided the potato soup we tried at the homeschool co-op we attend sounded fabulous! We messaged the lady that made it and asked for her recipe. Even though we did not have all of the ingredients, it did not stop us from making it. Potatoes were peeled and put on to boil. Onions sauteed on the stove as we headed upstairs. We had orders to sew!

     One of my big sellers on my Etsy shop are Barbie/Monster high doll bedding. My daughter created them one night when she decided she wanted to make doll bedding for her best friend for Christmas. We had two orders to get out. She got out the fabrics while I got everything set up for sewing. It took us a couple of hours to cut all of the pillows, iron, pin, sew, unpin, turn, stuff, re-pin, sew, and then iron and de-fuzz all of the tiny pillows and blankets. Especially when we were constantly running up and down the stairs checking on our soup! When we finished the doll bedding, we got our coats on and walked down to the mailbox to mail our packages out. 

     Finally, we sat down to try our first attempt at making homemade potato soup! There is nothing better than a homemade soup, let me tell you! We substituted milk and sour cream for the canned evaporated milk, and let it simmer down a little longer to let it thicken up. It was fantastic and we nearly ate the whole pot between our lunch and again at dinner! 

     Our awesome neighbor, Bree, came over again to bless us. She brought the kiddo a small bag of black walnuts to learn about and harvest. Bree visited a bit and then left to return to her house. My daughter and I snuggled into my bed for some homeschool. While she worked in her math book, I read to her from a book called Windows To Our World. It is a journal story from Sarah Brown of Dyslexia Games. I am not sure how much my daughter completed in her math work book. We were captivated by this book. Sarah as a child reminds me of the little girl laying next to me, all cozy and warm and giggling. As some of you know, my daughter is dyslexic and has other learning related disabilities. We do not let her use this as an excuse or a way out of learning. Like little Sarah in the book, we allow her a lot of time for her own self driven learning. I hope this book furthers her new found love of learning through self driven research and exploration. May she also live a life full of love and blessings from our Lord. 
     Hubby is in from the cold and nearly ready to eat dinner. Since hubby is not a fan of potato soup, I made him taco salad from the taco meat I store in the freezer. Having some pre-made meat for meals comes in handy. Especially on days like today where all the kiddo and I want to eat is the yummy potato soup we made for lunch. (This is when we nearly finished off the big pot of soup we made.) It also helps to keep our food bill down by making a bigger batch of meat from a family size package of hamburger caught on sale here and there. On Thursdays, when I work too late to cook the hubby dinner on time, he can pull out a meal starter to make a quick meal. It is important to me to home cook meals for my family, so having pre-made meals in the freezer helps to make me feel like I have still cooked for him. 
     After dinner, we watched a little t.v. and some DIY videos on how to make an indoor growing station for the plants we brought in. We discussed what improvements and additions we wanted to try on our mini farm. My daughter and I played some board games while Hubby and I talked. At 6:30 p.m., it was time for him to head upstairs for bed. This is the worst thing about his job, but I can't complain when we get him from 9:30 a.m. till 6:30 p.m. all to ourselves. The kiddo and I cleaned up our board game mess after Hubby kissed us both goodnight. It was time to check out the black walnuts we were gifted!
     My daughter broke open the first walnut with a hammer and found it to be soft and a bit fleshy feeling. It did not take us long to realize, research was definitely needed. We found videos on YouTube, and watched a great one. Too late, we discovered she should have worn gloves. She looked down at her hands and discovered they were slightly stained. We had no gloves, so she decided to go ahead and finish getting the fleshy parts of the one walnut, and search for gloves in the morning to finish the rest with. (Unfortunately, we found no gloves and both of us stained our hands. Fun stuff though!) 

     After cleaning up from the walnut mess, she hopped in the shower, and then snuggled up on the couch and finished her writing assignment from her homeschool co-op class. I have never seen her this excited to write before this class. Occasionally, she asks me how to spell a word. I sit at the computer and work on my own writing assignments, sprinkled in with a bit of Facebook. I post the picture of our homemade potato soup on my blog's Facebook fan page and message my sister back on Thanksgiving arrangements. My daughter comes in to read me her story out loud. We watch a few funny cat videos until it is time for her to clean her room before bed. She reads her library book for 20 minutes and then turns on the music she listens to while she sleeps. This is my cue to come to her room for prayers, good night giggles and sleepy kisses. We also make plans for the next days lessons, activities and 'to do' lists. 
     Later, while listening to the soft music coming from her room, I check my emails for the night. The co-op's blogging group emailed an assignment of writing about what we are thankful for. I reflect for a moment on the usual 'go to' thoughts on blessings and being thankful, but my mind keeps drifting to the days events. We worked hard, we learned lots, we laughed often and we loved much. I decided this is what I am most thankful for..... days like these. 

DISCLAIMER- This post is not a paid affiliate post by Sarah Brown, Dyslexia Games, or the book Windows to Our World, however, my Amazon link to the book IS a paid affiliate link. I was not asked to do a review of this book, but in this day of my life, we enjoyed reading it. Loving this book is my own honest opinion and I am just passing on a 'window to MY OWN world.' The Etsy link is to my own store, and if you choose to buy from us, that would be a blessing but in no way effects how I feel about my readers. Thank you for sharing this day with us! 

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

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