We picked up The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle at the library and the girls are really enjoying it.
You know the Carle style, with the amazing pictures and fun text. This one also has lots of great information about how a seed travels, what can happen to seeds to make them not grow into plants and then finally how a seed grows into a BIG plant.
After we read the book we headed outside to hunt for seeds. When we saw the big flowers in our backyard Sam instantly got excited that they were like the ones in the book.
Then we saw the seed pods and had a lot of fun pulling them off and opening them up. We tested out whether or not the wind would carry them away like in the book, but the wind failed to move these seeds.
Sam still wanted to look for more so we looked more closely around our yard and found some pinecones. We broke these apart and found the seeds inside here too.
It was a fun little backyard adventure and a great way to compliment the Carle book.
To expand on this more at home or in the classroom you could:
- Gather more seeds and allow your child some time to craft with the seeds.
- Bring more pods, pinecones and other seeds into the classroom or house and really let them break them apart and examine the seeds up close.
- On a windy day really compare which seeds more the fastest and once which drop straight down.
- For seeds that don't blow in the wind you could experiment with how else they might get moved around; do they stick to clothing, float on water, could an animal or human eat them, etc.
- If you child shows interest in edible seeds take a look around your kitchen with them to see where else you can find seeds; grains, rice, corn, sunflower seeds, peanuts, etc.
- For long time learning plant some seeds in a clear container, making sure to put at least one seed right up against the edge of the container so that you can easily watch it change and grow over time.
Have fun with seeds!
The Nitty Gritty!
I get asked all the time how I have time to think and plan the activities that I do with the girls. The fun part for me is that I don't really plan at all. Like for today, Sam found the book at the library and we really enjoyed it. So I thought about how we could expand on that. The outside part of our learning only lasted probably 10-15 mins. Sometimes what we do lasts much longer but I never force the girl's interest and try my best to follow their lead with what they want to do. When the pull of the swings takes over and they run off I don't yell for them to come back. I always want them to have fun with our learning and if it doesn't last that long I am okay with it.
So, don't ever feel like a failure if your outdoor learning does not last that long. Even the shortest of moments can make a big impact on your little one!