Seeds, Seeds and more seeds



We are beginning our year of botany study with seeds. It seems a likely place to begin... at the beginning, but is the seed really the beginning?....or is it the flower? Since the cycle of life is really a circle we just picked a spot and got on. We have used these resources as references and information so far:
Exploring Creation with Botany from the Young Explorer series
Seed Babies by Margaret Morley
The First book of Plants by Alice Dickson
A Tiny Seed By Eric Carle

We will be trying something new this time with our lapbooks....I am merging them with notebook pages and calling the combination a lapnotebook. Putting the notebooking pages inside our lapbooks will enable us to do more handwriting, science reports and diagaming of the plant parts, and who knows what else. I am using the Pro Click binder to put it all together.

The first thing we did was to design our lapnotebook covers. I printed off extra front pages from The First Book of Plants to use for illustrations. The boys chose which size and plants they wanted and went to coloring them and gluing them on the front cover.

Max chose the large sunflowers because they are yellow and tried to put all the other images on as well. He almost got them all on by cutting off all the extra white but in the end the lilly had to go. The pictures are really nice in that max learned that peanuts drop down from the plant and go into the soil from the top. Very cool!

T.J. chose the sunflowers too! But his were smaller. I am still impressed how much they enjoy doing projects like this. Just yesterday Zak showed his dad with pride the mini books he had made and the cover and the experiment sheets. It is so fun to see them put their best into something they really are proud of.

First thing we did was to go find some real seeds to look at and feel and compare. We talked a little about where we might find them and then out the door they flew gathering seeds. We collected some from our backyard. I was thinking they would go gather lots of each kind but instead they simply took one seed of each kind. Then we looked at them and talked about how different each one was and How God is so diverse and creative to make so many. Then we glued them into our mini book.

Next we started a  germination experiment because we read that a seed only needs three things to grow; warmth, water and air. The boys could not believe this and countered that of course they needed sunshine too! So we went about to discover if what they hypothized was true or not. We took three plastic bags, put a damp paper towel inside with some spaghetti squash seeds. Then we put one bag into the refridgerator (no warmth) and put one in the sunshine (but it was near the window and got cold) and one into a closet. (it was warmer than the window sill bag). Then I assigned a bag to each boy and we made a chart to graph our results by and every day we checked our seeds and looked to see if they sprouted or germinated. On about day six, T.J. who was monitoring the seed in the closet came running into the room so excited to see his seeds sprouting!!!! Eagerly he measured it...1/2 cm yahoo! his had been the first to germinate. Soon the seeds in the bag on the window sill germinated and out grew those in the closet so Zak who was looking after that bag was very proud to measure his sprout at 6 cm on day 12 the last day of the experiment. Max all along knew nothing would happen with his seed but he is now putting in the window sill and plans to plant them once they germinate.

While this experiment was going on (it took 12 days) we were reading seed babies and putting a few more mini books in our lapnotebooks. One day we were reading about melons and pumpkins and ended up getting curious about the amount of seeds we saw in the pumpkin....So of course we had to count them. Our pumpkin had about 613 in all. They were delicious roatsed with olive oil and salt in the oven!

On another day, we "planted" some beans in a jar with paper towels and some water to see it in real life what the new sprout will look like. We took a picture of the nicest sprout and labeled it's parts and mounted the picture on nice paper and put it into the lapnotebook.

Then a few days later, we made a mini book with these sequence cards .

I found the sequence cards at enchanted Learning and made the according fold booklet myself. Oooops! someone put their #3 sequence card upside down.

We spent a few different days learning the parts of the seed. the first day I simply showed them my seed part cards and showed them the new names for the parts. The next time we looked at them I cut off the name and asked them to tell me the name that goes with the picture. Meanwhile in other illustrations in our books we named them again. We talked about how the plumule becomes the leaves of the new plant and the radicle becomes the roots; how the testa falls off and how the young plant eats the cotyledon and once the cotyledon is eaten it uses its new leaves to make food. Then the following time we looked at the cards I gave them their own parts of the seed cards and they colored them by coping my cards and gluing  the part name on each card. We look at them periodically and later I will review the info with them by having them do a noteboking page about the seed parts.

After a few days we put together our last mini book on seed dispersal.

Inside we drew pictures of each way seeds disperse and pasted in a small text explaining each method. While they drew their pictures I read from Exploring Creation with Botany. The day before I read from All About Plants and how seeds travel.

I found these fun little images to use for a mini book about the parable and the sower. We read it one day, talked a little about it's meaning and then the following day we put this min book together. Inside is the sower and some seeds from our garden that we glued down.

About a week later we went to work doing the copy work for the parable.

And a few days later we played this game....

My game is printed with only black and white but on the web site you can choose to print in color. It would look tons better. The boys, however, enjoyed the game even though it was sort of ugly. We used seeds for place markers.

All in all it took us about one month to cover this little section of botany...... next we are looking at fruits, the houses for seeds.

Boys will be boys

We had the delight of having three other boys come over for a morning and share lessons with us. The theme was camouflage and we looked at animals and how they hide in nature. Then we became the animals....prey and predator alike growled, pawed the ground, snorted and walked with stealth through the ever growing under brush in our yard. I enjoyed watching them connecting with primal like instincts. Even the quietest ones came alive in this primitive, manly sort of drama. Boys who can understand them.....

While I watched I felt a twinge of pride. Some day those fierce boys growling like lion cubs will be men, roaring like lions and that will be a grand day. Men of Valor growling for righteousness and outwitting the enemies of goodness alight. Go on fellows growl away the darkness and dispel the evil, fight the dragon and win. Take on the enemies of goodness and kindness and all that is ungodly and make the world a safer brighter place. Be manly men, strong and good men!

I'll salute you.

The Law of Review

"Sculptors in Ancient Rome" by Lawrence Alma Tadema

“Let us suppose the ordinary process of teaching to be finished. The teacher and pupil have met and have done their work together. Language freighted with ideas and aided by illustrations has been uttered and understood. Knowledge with its treasures of truth has been thought into the mind of the learner, and it lies there in greater or less completeness, to feed thought, to guide conduct, and to form character. What more is needed? The teacher’s task seems ended. BUT no! The most delicate, if not also the most difficult, work remains to be accomplished. All that has been done lies hidden in the learner’s mind, and lies there as a potency rather than a possession. What eye shall penetrate the understanding to determine the clearness and accuracy of the pupil’s cognitions? What hand shall nurse into larger growth and into permanent force the ideas he has been led to conceive? What process shall fix into active habits the thought-potencies which have been evolved? It is for this final and finishing work that our seventh law provides.” Pg 137

“The completion, test, and confirmation of teaching must be made by reviews.”

This is the seventh and last law of teaching from The Seven laws of Teaching by John Milton Gregory. It is a surprisingly fun law though it may require several days, weeks or even years to be complete. I find it fun because I am an artist or designer at heart. I revel in approaching a topic or a creative idea from every angle; to revisit again the same idea in a new way; to turn a phrase with yet another form of imagery. It thrills me to make it come alive just one more time. I can be wordy in some arenas however here within this law it is perfectly legal and it is necessary to cement truth into the usable portion of your brain.

“No time in teaching is spent more profitable than that spent in reviewing. Other things being equal, he is the ablest and most successful teacher who secures from his pupils the most frequent, thorough, and INTERESTING reviews.” Pg 138

So what really then constitutes a review?
“A review is something more than a repetition. A machine can repeat a process, but only an intelligent agent can review it. The repetition done by a machine is a second movement precisely like the first; a repetition by the mind is the rethinking of a thought…..It involves fresh conceptions and new associations, and brings an increase of facility and power.” Pg 138

Explain more just why we need reviews?
“When we enter a strange house, we know not where to look for its several rooms, and the attention is drawn to a few of the more singular and conspicuous features of the furniture. We must return again, and again, and resurvey the scene with our eyes grown familiar to the place and to the light, before the whole plan of the building and the uses of all the rooms with their furniture will stand clearly revealed. So one must return again and again to a lesson if he would see all there is to see in it, and come to true and vivid understanding of its meaning.” Pg 139-140

To begin our year investigating botany I began with the concept of seeds. Knowing that my boys are young and need to become familiar with several new ideas I hunted for resources in the books I had on seeds, activities online, coloring sheets, mini books, experiments. I needed to look at seeds mainly the new names of the parts of the seed; testa, cotyledon, plumule, radicle, and embryo in many different ways to be sure they would get it with out losing their attention. We began by looking at seeds. Then we went hunting for seeds in our yard and on our nature hikes. Then we soaked some and opened them up. Then we began reading from a book called seed babies which describes some of the things we had been touching and seeing. We learned a simple song about seeds and how they grow. I played a montesorri matching game with the parts of the seeds, matching the new names with the picture of the seed part. They then made their own seed parts cards, coloring in and naming each part. We read about seed babies and what they need to grow, so we did an experiment to see if that was true. We put spaghetti squash seeds inside a plastic bag with a wet paper towel and place one bag in the sunlight, one in a closet and one in the fridge and looked at then for 12 days and marked our results. We opened all kinds of seeds and looked for the parts we knew. We counted how many seeds different fruits have. We noted all the different testas (outer shell of the seed)….the list goes on. I knew we were done with this lesson when a friend was over for dinner and the boys all explained their seed mosaic of the parts of the seed using the new Latin terms we had been reviewing.

“But the repetitions of a review are not made the same hour. They are spread over days and weeks, and hence they bring a new element into play. The lapse of time changes the point of view. At every review lesson we survey the lesson from a new standpoint. Its facts rise in a new order and are seen in new relations. Truths that stood in the shadow in first study come forth into the light.” pg 142

Ideas…..how to put reviews into practice. (paraphrased from pg 148-150)
*Always look for oppertunities to review. If there is a spare moment have a short lesson or question or new project to introduce that will fill the time with cementing already taught material.


*Set times into your day or lesson for review. Mr. Gregory mentions that one third of a lesson should be spent in review. I read about how Christine Miller would keep 3X5 cards of new facts her children were learning color coded for each subject and drill then for five minutes at the opening of her lessons. Use the end of a lesson to summarize or play a short game which reviews ideas of the lesson.

*Always link new lessons to old lessons. This is a simple way to review while at the same time introducing new knowledge using formerly acquired knowledge.


*Review frequently….and at intervals. So you may review within a lesson, review the next day as well, wait a few days and review it again and so forth until it is clear the student has got the material. Then why not review it again if a new idea comes along…don’t waste an oppertunity.


*When reviewing search for new questions to raise, new illustrations to explain it, new projects that will make use of it, new proofs that it is true, let the students ask their questions….a new a fresh approach or application will send the student thinking again.


*Forget not the value of a pencil and paper when doing a review.

I hope these laws will shed more light on the possibilities we have to teach our children well. But more importantly, that these laws will never add burden or weight to your already heavy and important load. May you prayerfully consider and tackle that which seems most interesting and inspiring and applicable to your family. May you love and enjoy the short time you have with your children and be free for the son has come to set us free! God bless you richly!

All quotes are from the Seven laws of teaching by John Milton Gregory.