Exploring seeds from nature with preschoolers

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I recently published a post sharing the first activity we did to learn about seeds during our seed unit last spring. Today I’m sharing another post about exploring seed with preschoolers. This time I’m sharing four, more-or-less spontaneous activities we did to learn about seeds.

The truth is that once we got into our seed unit and read more books about seeds, we were seeing seeds EVERYWHERE around us! My kids were so obsessed that for weeks they pointed out every seed they saw around them. They also saved seeds from every fruit they ate so they could plant them in our backyard.

Note: For more seed activities your kids will love, see my Botany Unit Study page.

Exploring seeds in a pea pod

We planted a fruit and vegetable garden in our backyard last year. One of our plants was a pea plant.

Once the plant began producing pods, we plucked a pod off the vine and split it open to see what was inside. We found peas, of course. But more importantly, we talked about how the peas were the seeds of the pea plant.

And best of all, we got a chance to eat the raw peas. I don’t think any of us particularly liked the taste, however. 🙂

Exploring seeds in a petunia plant

On another day, my mom brought over some parts from a petunia plant. We got a chance to cut into the ovaries, which we knew from our experience dissecting a flower was the part of the flower that contains the seeds.

We used some garden scissors to cut upon the ovaries.

Insider were a number of seeds.

We used our Learning Resources magnifying glasses to observe the tiny seeds more closely.

Dissecting a pinto bean

Before our seed unit, it had never really occurred to me that beans were actually seeds.

But I had been soaking some pinto beans on our counter for cooking, and realized it would be fun to see what was inside.

Because they had been soaking for a while when we did this activity, they were quite soft, so it was very easy to remove the seed coat.

We then split the bean in half to look at what was inside.

We then separated the embryonic plant from the two cotyledons, so we could more closely observe the miniature plant ready to grow from this seed. What a fun surprise!

Smashing seeds with a hammer

We were going for a walk around our block one day when we found these wonderful seeds that had fallen to the sidewalk from someone’s tree. I believe the seed is some type of chestnut.

We observed and then removed the very spiny outer covering of the seed.

We were then left with a large, hard brown seed. We wanted to see what was inside, but it was too hard to open with our hands. So we decided to get out our hammer and have some fun by smashing the seed!

The kids put on their safety goggles and I handed them a lightweight, child-friendly hammer.