Children examine the sequence of photos in the Sprouting Seeds Photo Album and the photos and measurements in the Growing Graph. They tell the story of how their bean seeds and bean plants grew and changed.
What do you notice about our bean seeds and plants?
Look how our bean seeds have changed! What’s new in this photo?
Materials
- Plants Journal app on the iPad designated specifically for Guided Small Group work
- Plant Measuring Strip (PDF)
- Group’s seeds in the plastic sandwich bag
- Group’s bean plants in the container of soil
Directions: Lesson 12
Guided Small Group
In this activity, each small group reviews the data they documented about their bean plants in Growing Beans: Journal Entries over the past several weeks.
- Examine the bean seeds in the bag and the plant in soil. Encourage children to build on each other’s responses:
- What do you notice about our bean seeds and plants? Do you observe anything that is different from the last time we looked?
- Which has grown more: the plants in the bag or the plants in the soil? Let’s use the measuring strip to check how tall each plant is.
- Which looks healthier? Why do you think that is?
- It has been almost three weeks since we planted our bean seeds! Do you remember what the bean seeds looked like when we planted them? Let’s take a photo of our plants and measure them one more time so we can compare the plant growth up until today.
- Find the first photo and begin the discussion. Open the group’s journal in the Plants Journal iPad app. From the All Activities screen, open the Sprouting Seeds Photo Album and scroll through the photos, pausing to discuss each one. Possible discussion ideas:
- What did the bean seed look like in the beginning?
- How did it change?
- Tell me about the root hairs and how they grew. How did the roots help the plant grow?
- What do you notice that is new in this photo? Are there new leaves? How do the leaves help the plant grow?
- Open the Growing Graph from the All Activities screen. Tap on the first photo to enlarge it. Then scroll through the sequence of photos, again pausing to discuss each one. Possible discussion ideas:
- What do you think was happening below (or under) the soil in these early pictures?
- What part of the plant grows under the soil?
- What did the little bean plant look like when it first came up?
- What do you notice dangling at the end of the stem?
- What happened next as our bean plant grew? Then what happened?
- What do you notice that is new in this photo?
- What parts of the plant grow above the soil?
- Return to the Growing Graph by tapping the green box with a white arrow. What day was it when our plant finally poked out of the soil? Tap each green plant drawing on the graph and read the numbers with children as the bean plant grows taller and taller. How much taller is the plant in this photo than in the last photo—the one we took today?
- Have children act out the growth of the bean plant as illustrated in the graph, crouching down and then slowly standing up, growing taller and taller.
