mystery seeds

it begins with a seed

We looked at seeds and saw that they have different colours, different shapes and different sizes.

A great book to marvel at the variety and beauty of seeds is A Seed is Sleepy  by  Dianna Hutts Aston and illustrated by Sylvia Long.

The Surprise Garden by Zoe Hall tells the story of a child planting mystery seeds and growing a surprise garden.

My student teacher brought in some mystery seeds for our kidlets.

The big one is an avocado seed (or pit).  It is a bit of an interloper, being added at the last minute.

We observed how different the seeds looked - long and thin, tiny and round, striped, round and bumpy.  We did not tell the kidlets what kind of seeds they were.  We did not even give any clues.  

Most of the kidlets could identify the sunflower seeds.  

That left three mystery seeds.

So my student teacher gave them a clue.

With the clues, the kidlets worked together, pooling their knowledge and experience, and identified the seeds.

Then the kidlets predicted which seeds would sprout first.  I believe that the sunflower seeds got the most votes.  

(I think that we will have to learn the word germinate.  Student teachers don't always know that kindergarten kids love big scientific words.)

What have you got growing in your classroom?