I Really Wonder What Plant Im Growing

I came across a Charlie and Lola episode where Charlie teaches Lola about growing plants.  This fun, educational ten minute clip is a great way to recap what plants need to grow. My children were very excited pointing out things they knew throughout the episode. 

My Living World Pocket Microscope

My Living World Pocket Microscope

We have had lots of fun playing with the My Living World Pocket Microscope. My children have found it really amazing looking at flowers, leaves, and other materials found in the garden close up.
This is a really lovely set and only costs around ten pounds.

Product Description

Small enough to fit in your pocket, but powerful enough to make an ant look the size of an antelope! This real microscope magnifies 30 times using precision optics, and is much easier to use than those old-fashioned desk microscopes!

When you unfold the microscope, the light automatically illuminates the area in front of the lens, so that whether you are interested in nature studies, or crime-solving, this will be an invaluable companion!

Comes with sample slides and all you need to make your own slides. Works indoors and outdoors! Specimens do not need to be mounted onto slides! The colour manual gives helpful hints about how to get a close-up view of just about anything, and suggests some fascinating subject matter.

Contents

•  Illuminate pocket microscope
• Sample slide with grasshopper body part
• Sample slide with textiles
• 3 x blank microscope slides
• 12 x transparent sample covers
• 12 x labels for samples
• 4 x storage jars for samples
• Tweezers
• Colour instruction booklet

Flower Detectives

We have recently moved to a new village and a nice sunny afternoon was a perfect chance to get out and explore our new surroundings. I believe that education should be made fun by incorporating it into normal everyday activities. On this occasion we used our imaginations and became super sleuths for the day and embarked on a adventure flower hunt. Before we set off we equipped ourselves with cardboard magnifying glasses which my children had decorated earlier.

I also printed a poster with pictures of flowers we may find to check off along the way and off we set with our cameras to explore our village.

Runner Bean Experiment

This experiment was very nostalgic for me, I remember being very excited to show my parents my runner bean I had grown at school. It is simple yet very effective and fun way to show children what plants need to grow.

Firstly we looked at the effect that light has on the growth of plants. We filled two glasses full of wet cotton wool balls and planted the beans between the cotton and the glass so we could easily observe what was happening. We then used lolly pop sticks to label one glass light and the other dark.

Light vs Dark

The light glass was then placed on a sunny window sill and the dark was placed inside a cupboard. Over the next couple of weeks we checked our beans at the same time each day, watering when necessary and took pictures of our observations.

Day two

After two days we had our first sprout. My children were a little surprised to find that it was the bean planted in the dark. I explained to them that plants were very clever and the bean planted in the dark will grow faster because it needs to grow higher to try find some sunlight.

Day four

On day four the light plant had finally grown a sprout. In hind sight I should of soaked the beans in water over night before starting the experiment to make it a little quicker. My children get really excited checking on their beans everyday but this is quite a long experiment, so it is a good idea to also plant some quick growing plants in the garden or grow a sproutapouch. Children can get quite impatient waiting for things to grow.

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

                                                      

 By day twelve both plants had sprouted and had a stem and two leaves. The noticeable difference being that the dark plant was taller paler and had smaller leaves.

Day 13

Day 16

Sproutapouch

I discovered these fab sow and seal greenhouse in a bag micro salad growing kits and felt compelled to use them in my project.

The kids had loads of fun setting it up and watching it grow. The really good thing about sproutapouch is once they are set up no further watering is required and they are fully grown in 6-10 days and ready to eat. They were even more amazed when we got to eat it. I think even though they knew food came from various parts of the plant, actually growing it themselves and eating it made them more aware of this.

Set up is really quick and simple. First of all we placed the compost disc in the pouch, added water, and to my children's amazement  the disc instantly expanded to eight times the size. The children then enjoyed getting their fingers dirty fluffing up the soil and spreading it across the bottom of the pouch. We then sprinkled our seeds, gave it a little pat and we we were all set.  We sealed the bag, placed it in a sunny window, and the next morning the seeds had already started to germinate.