Land and Seeds

where did the world come from?

As the students rolled into class, we reviewed our hand motions and poem from Where Did the World Come From by Karyn Lukasek
Here is a video of Day 3 when God created the dry land and the vegetation.

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Read Aloud:  It Starts with a Seed by Laura Knowles

This simple text creates a wonderful picture of how a tiny seed can grow into a magnificent tree.  It reminds me of how God can take the tiniest mustard seed of faith and move a mountain.  God can do great things with tiny things, even our precious children.

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Lima Bean Dissection

This is the procedure that I followed as I led the Kindergarten and first graders through a dissection of a lima bean.

1.  Give each student a Lima Bean Dissection Guide. 
2.  Pass out one dry lima bean to each student.  Have the observe it with their five gifts (senses), 
3. Measure the lima bean on the provided ruler.  They can place the bean at the 0 and mark a line to where the lima bean is.
4.  Trace around the dry lima bean in the provided box to document its size. 
5. Pass out a soaked bean on a paper towel.  Have them observe this bean with the five gifts (senses).  6. Measure this bean the same way on the provided ruler and then have them trace the outline of the soaked bean.  They will be able to tell how much bigger the bean gets when it is soaked.
7.  Have them gently take off seed coat to look at it, observe and wonder.  There is a space for them to draw what they see on the large lima bean on the page.
8.  Next, separate the two halves.  Because there are two halves, this makes it a dicot seed.  On one side, they should find the embryo or baby plant.  Some will have a tiny leaf already there as well.  Have them draw this on their lima bean diagram.
9.  Finally, point out that the rest of the seed is cotyledon, or plant food for the seed as it begins to grow.

Note:  Soak more beans than necessary as some of my students enjoyed just breaking the seed into pieces.  All types of exploring but nonetheless have extra on hand for your intended purpose.

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Planting Lima Beans

I prepared some cups with dirt and had each of the students plant a dry lima bean and a soaked lima bean to see if they would grow.  We watered the dirt and then placed a cup on top of the cup with the dirt.  One student asked how they were going to water it if the cup was covered.  I thought this to be a very observant question.
The water cycle of course.
We are going to view the water cycle in action and see if it will be enough water to grow our lima beans a little bit.  We had all sorts of hypothesis' but only time will tell what will happen.

As we planted we sang the Water Cycle song from last week.