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My preschooler has finally learned his alphabet, but is still struggling with counting from 1 to 20 without skipping numbers. This fun and easy activity gave him a chance to work on counting from 1 to 13, and was his first preschool science experiment! Together we learned what the best environment is for a seed to grow, inspired by one of our favorite books!

Preschool Science Experiment Inspired by “The Tiny Seed”

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This week I am joining some phenomenal education bloggers to write about storybook inspired science.

Every day before rest time I read a couple of books to my preschooler. It’s become a calming and special time for us to do while his big brother is at school, and baby takes a nap.

We recently both really enjoyed reading Eric Carle’s “The Tiny Seed“. As the story goes, a tiny seed goes on a journey through various climates and geographies to eventually settle on fertile land and grow into a beautiful and gigantic flower. He starts his journey with several other seeds, but along the way the other seeds fall and don’t grow.

“The Tiny Seed” inspired me to recreate a few of the “climates” to see if our seeds would grow.

“The Tiny Seed” Preschool Science Experiment

Supplies:

3 small jars
potting soil
water
ice
small flower seeds

Procedure:

First we created 3 different “climates” to our jars. One we filled halfway with water, another jar halfway with ice, and the third jar halfway with soil.
Next we opened our seed packet, and made three equal sized groups of seeds.
Here’s where I worked with my son on counting:
First we counted all the seeds, and found we had 39 seeds.
Next we counted 3 lines (or groups) of seeds, each with 13 seeds.

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We then placed one group of seeds on top of the ice, and then covered them with another layer of ice. We then placed the cup in the freezer. The climate for our seeds was “The Arctic”. We left the seeds in there for one week to see if they would grow.
Next we dropped one of the other groups of seeds into the cup of water, and placed it under the sink, where there is no sunlight. The climate for our seeds was “Deep in the Ocean”. We left the seeds in there for one week to see if they would grow.
We placed the last set of seeds into soil, then covered them, just like the tiny little seed in the our book. We placed them on a window sill where they would get plenty of natural light. We also added water to the soil every time it looked dry. We left the seeds for one week to see if they would grow.