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Springtime is a great time to grow plants and little ones LOVE observing this amazing life cycle. We have been talking about how we get our food and where food comes from and the boys try to save the seeds from almost everything they eat in hopes to plant them. So, I decided to create mini greenhouse crafts for them to observe how a seed grows up close!
Materials:
- seeds
- different colored post-it notes
- bowl of water
- ziploc sandwich bags
- cotton balls
- green construction paper
- markers
- small planters or containers
- potting mix
- scissors
- tape
Clear your workspace. Sort your seeds out using different colored post-it notes for each different type of seeds. We used seeds we collected from red peppers and jalapeños used in our meals.
Use a Ziploc bag to trace out the size of the Greenhouse window, be sure to make the window size about 1/2 inch smaller than the actual size of the bag.
Cut out the Greenhouse windows
Use a marker to write “My Greenhouse” on the bottom of the paper
Soak cotton balls (about 10 per bag) in the bowl of water then place them in the bag.
Try to line the cotton balls up in a line on the bottom of the bag
Next, carefully add the seeds to the bag on top of the cotton balls. Try to space them pout and it is ok if they shift to the side or bottom of the cotton balls.
Label the bag with the type of seed you placed in each bag for identification
Use tape to secure the bag to the back of the construction paper then tape it to a window that receives lots of light.
Check on the seeds daily and you should see them begin to sprout roots and little leaves. It took about two weeks for some of our red pepper seeds to become seedlings. You can even make a daily growth chart to chart the progress of the seeds.
Once, your seedlings have grown roots and sprouted leaves, they can be transplanted into little planters with potting soil to continue growing.
All of our seedlings were not ready to be replanted at the same time, so we planted the ones that were ready and returned the others to the window i the greenhouse to grow a little more.