Bean growing is a great way to explore science in your classroom!
With all the bean measuring and play going on, we also took the time to explore how beans grow…
We can also go outside and plant!
The Bean Growing Process
This was a simple way to plant a bean. We started with cotton balls, water, plastic baggies, and a bowl of water…
Each child dipped their cotton balls into water and placed them in their baggie. They used enough cotton balls to fill all the way across the bottom of the baggie…
Next each child added some lima beans to their baggie. They wanted to add handfuls so we had to remind them that the beans needed space to grow so only add four or five…
Before introducing this activity to the children, I had previously soaked the lima beans overnight to speed up the growing process a bit…
Observing Changes Over Time
Once the children finished adding their cotton balls and beans to their baggies, we then closed up the zipper and taped them to our window (make sure the baggies are sealed tight so they hold in the moisture). Now all we have to do is wait and see what happens. We will talk about the growth of the beans as they start to shoot out some sprouts…
Beans after one day in the window
Making Predictions
Children made predictions about what they thought would happen next during the course of the bean growing experiment.
Bean plant after 8 days
Scientific Discoveries
I think we added too much water in a few of our plants – or we didn’t seal them tightly enough or perhaps we got too carried away with the number of beans in the bag. In any case, we had a few that didn’t grow. So we are going to try again next week for those who would like to do it again. The interesting thing is that we were able to talk about why some didn’t grow as well as why we think some did. This lead to some great inquiry and scientific discussions on similarities and differences based on natural observations happening in our classroom!
This one didn’t grow… Time for a Do-Over!!
