More Science through Plants

Carrot Top Garden – Sprouting Carrot Tops with Children

Carrots tops are one of the easiest plants to grow and requires no special equipment.  Children can see results in a matter of days, which is exciting for them.

Cut the tops off of three or four carrots.  Have your children place them in a shallow dish and water them daily.  The carrot tops should be sitting in at least 1/4 inch water at all times.  Sit back and watch the carrot tops sprout new green foliage.  This provides an excellent opportunity for questions and answers:

• What do they think will happen with they put the carrot in the water?
• How does it look a few days later?
• When it sprouts conversations on the process of growing and how things grow
• Encourage the children to talk about the changes of the plant
• Draw pictures
• Guess what is next

There is so much you can do with this activity.  Be creative.  While it is growing you can read some books and conduct nutrition activities using carrots. It is amazing that most children only know the baby carrots that are already cleaned and ready to eat.  May have not seen a carrot before all the processing.  See the next blog for some more ideas.

Growing Carrot Tops

 

 

 

Preschoolers Learning About Science

Children begin learning about how things work and how things are made by experimenting with real objects.  We help children to be careful observers of nature and experiment to find out.  Using real materials and their senses, children explore textures, sizes, shapes and relationships.  Natural curiosity makes them active scientists.

Questioning is part of this curiosity.  Preschoolers ask lost of questions, especially, “Why?”  Although this can be nerve wracking, it is part of their scientific process.  Teachers respond to these questions by encouraging children to find out the answers for themselves.  They ask questions like, “What do you think?” or “How can we find out what would happen if…?”

We include many chances for children to touch and learn from real objects.  Classroom pets teach them about animals, their life cycles, their diets and their temperaments.  Field trips to a nature preserve or zoo allow children to learn about unusual animals.

Your own outdoor play area also provides children a ready-made science lesson.  We might grow flowers or herbs to help children learn about cause and effect, plant life, and the properties of soil.  Point out how the plan life changes with the seasons.  Observe insects and discuss how they live, collect food and build nests.

Children learn and remember so much when they have worked with the “real thing” and have discovered the answers on their own!

Encourage parents to let you know when a good “science lesson” such as the birth of a pet happens at home.  That way you can work together to make it a new learning experience!

Look for future blogs for some fun science activities for preschoolers.  If you have ideas you would like to share please let me know.

Happy Exploring!!