Seeds

As you look around for things to explore with your young scientist, keep your eyes open for a chance to talk about how plants grow from seeds.

Maybe you can find an acorn and can talk about the huge tree it can grow into.  Or maybe, in planting a garden, you can talk about what the little seed will grow into one day.

A sprouting seed has a lot of complex things going on as it grows but it really has only two big jobs that are easy for kids to understand.

The seed needs to send a root down, where it can reach food and water, and, at the same time, send two leaves up to collect solar energy.

The seed has within it, regardless of its size, just enough of a food supply to do those two jobs.

After that, sunlight provides the energy to turn those underground nutrients and water into more and more roots and leaves as it grows into the plant it will become.

From there, it’s a small step to get boys and girls thinking about how the food they eat turns into bigger and stronger bodies for themselves.  Then you can talk about how important it is to eat the right kinds of food.  See how one thing leads into another?

The video above is a fun way to see how seeds develop over time.  The jumps in the video were made by editing out the night time darkness.

Me?  I just liked the music.