I am back with something fun we have been doing in my daycare. My kids are really into bugs and plants.. so I decided that we would make our own plants. As I read about the easiest way to do this online... I found all I needed was a jar, a bean, cotton balls, and water. Of course I had all of these stuff. The couple of articles that I read used Lima Beans.. but I didn't have any of those... So I went for the dried white beans hoping that they would work...
The kids were so excited. Above you can see my little monkey shaking his glass jar after he has stuffed it full with cotton balls. I let them play with it for a bit because what they ALL really wanted to do was stuff it full, take it out, stuff it full, take it out- you get my drift. Finally, I slowly showed them what we would be doing by using the one I was 'helping' my 6th month old make.
You can see their hands above putting their white beans in their cotton balls. They had a lot of fun pushing them down the sides. It varied how many each child put in their jar... there is one with two, five, and six. I didn't really give any restrictions- they told me when they were done.
The next thing we did was water it. This, my friends, was hard for me. Sometimes I tend to be a control freak and.. DO TOO MUCH for these little guys. I am trying to learn to back off and allow them to have more control. Eventually I want my kids to pour their own drinks at lunch- but I really just don't think they are there yet. :) But I did let them pour the water into their jars- and honestly, they did awesome. I think only one little one made a mess... which of course is so easy to wipe right up! :) So they put enough water in their jars to soak the cotton balls up.
Next, we put the jars in my window sill in the kitchen. The left one looks like it has something coming out of it- it does not... that is a leaf coming from a plant that it in my window sill. So we have had these sitting here for about two weeks .. and we watch them daily. The kids ask me for the plants so they can look at them. They really love them. We take them outside somedays so they can get extra son. The jar on the right was the only one that had sprouted up until about three days ago. Her plant started early and looks so great.
Tonight I re-did our playroom/school room and I moved our plants to the window sill in there. I am not sure how long it will last as the kids can absolutely reach up there to grab it. It is that control thing again...
Above you will see the plant that I talked about previously. Today, about two weeks later, her plant has many sprouts in it. When my son and I came home today it looked so much different- little Kaya is going to be so excited to see her plant on Monday.
This is my little man's.. it FINALLY popped out through the cotton balls today! :) He will be so thrilled to see it in the morning... :)
We really had so much fun making these. I went to Michael's today and purchased a few 'cheap' things that we are going to use to continue our unit on plants... I am so excited to dig deeper. Even though I have two toddler girls and only one toddler boy- the girls are just as into getting dirty outside in the garden, looking at worms and roly ploys, playing with cars and trains... as my little man is. It is so great!
I am so blessed to have this job.
Pin It
