Objective:

Plant Experiment- Children will watch seeds grow into plants overtime and then varying the
conditions to predict, observe, report and draw conclusion.

Materials:

-Lima Beans (3 for each child)

-Cotton Balls (two for each child)

- Ziploc baggies (one for each child)

- Spray bottle with water (2)

Scaffolding:

Children already know about plants and flowers and different parts of them like root, stem,
flowers, petals and leaves and they were familiar with what the plants need to grow like water
and sunlight. They also read variety books about plants and flowers like Growing vegetable
soup and The carrot’s seed.

Procedure:

At the beginning of the activity I ask them have you ever planted seed before? And then I give
them the seeds. They can look at the seeds and tell me what they notice about the seeds. After
that I show them the materials that we have and I ask them what do you think these are for?
Because the materials that we have include the new vocabulary I should introduce them and
say each word clearly and make children to use them as well.

After introducing the materials I explain that we will be doing a plant experiment. We are not
sure what will happen but we have some prediction and guess what will happen in the future.

And then I give them the materials so they can start it and during their activities I comment on
their works like “ Ronald is wetting his cotton. Or I think next she’ll add lima beans.” And I ask
some open-ended questions as well. At the end we put the baggies in a place that is prepared
before maybe in playground or behind the window. Children can observe their seeds and predict
what will happen to them and me should take some notes of what they talk about the plants.

DAP support:

- A good science program provides children with opportunities to share their ideas in multiple
ways through both action and words. (Page 140)

- There is a balance between children’s pursuit of their own interests and ideas and the pursuit
of questions and ideas generated by other children or the teacher. (Page 140)

- Encourages children to reflect on, represent, and document their experiences and share and
discuss their ideas together. (page 141)
Open ended questions for children:

- What do you notice about the lima beans?

- What are you doing to help the beans grow?

- Why do you think we need a cotton ball in here?

- How much water you will give it?

- How do long do you think it will take and when we see the leaves?

- What do you think your seed will turn in to? Or what will it look likes as it grow?

- What do you think will happen if we put this in a cabinet? Why?

-How can we make sure our plants get sun?

Do self-evaluation
1. What would I change and why?
As my group mentioned, at the beginning of this activity, I can give them some beans
that I put them in the beautiful boxes and tell them that is a magic beans. In this way I
make this activity interesting for children and also remind them Jack and the beanstalk
story.
Another thing that my friends mentioned is some questions that I have can be hard and
confusing for kids. For example, I asked why you think we need a cotton ball in here
and it’s hard so instead of this question I can ask how they feel the cottons. I think I
need to make this activity simpler and ask some simple question because my audiences
are preschoolers.
The last one is I have to talk about seeds and describe clearly what they are and notify
children that they are not for eating and we do not put them in our month.
2. What would I keep and why?
As my group told me, I can keep the other parts of that activity. It’s interesting for kids. They
plant the seeds by themselves and they can see what will happen for their seeds. I think it really
can be a good experience for them. Also they have opportunity to observe and predict as well,
also they can be familiar with new vocabularies.