An Easy and Fun Toddler Gardening Activity - Germinating Bean Seeds

With spring underway, you can expect some wonderful Montessori spring activities from us.

One of the ones we've been working on this week (taken from our Montessori At-Home Program) is germinating seeds and growing seedlings.

You can do this one even if you you're not much of a gardener. Even a one year old call follow along with the process because it doesn't take too long to see the results. The seeds often sprout in less than a week.

This activity is also a fantastic opportunity to introduce some new vocabulary, with words like seed, germinate, and beanstalk.

It brings a huge smile to my face to hear my 3-year-old talk about germinating seeds.

How To Germinate a Bean Seed

Start by purchasing a package of bean seeds. Sugar snap peas or snow peas work really well and can be eaten raw off of the plant, a great experience for your child.

Soak the seeds in a bowl overnight and then put them into a ziploc bag.

Add a wet paper towel to the ziploc bag and tape to a sunny window at your child's height.

Potting Your Germinated Seeds

1. Once your seed has sprouted, sit with your child and talk about what you’re going to be doing, for example: "The seed is germinated now, which means it’s ready to be planted so it can continue to grow."
   
   
2. Encourage your child to scoop some soil into the pot, and then carefully remove the germinated seed from the bag and place it in the soil.
   
   
3. Encourage your child to loosely cover the seed with some soil.
   
   
4. Using a small watering can, water the planted seed. If you have our mini watering can, this is a great opportunity to use it. The size is ideal because it limits the amount of water your child can add to the pot.
   
   
5. If you have more than one germinated seed, repeat until they have all been planted.

We also used child-sized gardening tools to plant the seeds into the small pots.

You can see from these pics, the progression of the activity from last summer, from the ziploc bag right until the end where we're enjoying the snap peas at the table.

Growing food is such a great way to help children understand where food comes from and how much goes into the process.