Teach Your Kids Life Lessons by Planting Seeds

I remember working with a group of third graders a number of years ago who, for the most part, lived in city apartments and had never had a chance to experience the excitement of planting seeds and watching them grow.

Just for fun, I suggested that we all save our milk containers that day so that we could plant a garden. They thought that was pretty funny, but they drank their milk which was in small pint containers and dutifully lined up to wash them out at the classroom sink in the back corner of the room before setting them on a table to dry.

The next day, I brought a small bucket of small gravel, and a larger one of garden loam, graciously gathered for me by my husband, to school with me, along with an assortment of old kitchen spoons for use as miniature gardening tools.

Curious kids crowded around to see what the new additions to our classroom were all about.

After we finished doing our spelling for the day, we gathered at the gardening table, and I instructed the class on how to layer a bit of gravel in the bottom of their milk container, followed by enough loam to fill the container to about 3/4 of the way to the top of what were now known as their "garden plots."

Having had past experience with similar projects, I had selected beans as the crop most likely to produce quick results and the least likely to fail, so I gave each student 3 beans to plant in his "plot." You would have thought they were farming 10 acres of choice acreage, the way they dug their little holes and positioned each seed just so. Then they used markers to decorate the outside of the gardens and put their names on them so there would be no mistaking who owned which container.

After the planting was done, they each added a little water to his or her garden, and we went back to our seats to wait.

Fortunately, waiting in the case of growing beans, didn't take too long. Every morning, as soon as they arrived, each child had to check out the gardens, which were lined up in the windows along one side of the classroom.

In just a few days, someone shouted, "Mine's growing. I see it!" A couple of others also spotted activity in their containers and joined in the rejoicing.

Day after day, the children compared their bean plants, but, as days turned into weeks, a few children lost interest and forgot to water their plants and were greeted by drooping, sagging specimens. Others overdid the watering with similar results. Through trial and error, the class, as a whole, learned that keeping plants healthy involved more than just poking a seed into the ground and forgetting about it.

Finally, some of the beans grew so tall we had to add dowels to the containers to tie the plants up and, before long, they started to put forth blossoms and tiny little beans. It was moving day.

Those students who had room took their plants home. A friendly janitor at the school dug us a small garden plot at the edge of the playground where we transplanted the bean plants of those who did not have room for them at home. Little stakes with nametags were embedded next to each plant so that we never lost track of who owned each one.

That year, a group of 3^rd graders not only harvested a few small beans from their plants, but they learned to measure how much gravel, water, and soil went into providing for each plant. They wrote, illustrated, and posted stories about their beans on the classroom walls. They displayed their plants at a parent's night, and they experienced great satisfaction in growing something worthwhile from a tiny seed.

I, too, learned something from this project, and that is that you can teach your kids real life lessons by having them plant just a few small seeds.

1. You can teach them that all life has a small beginning and grows into fullness from there.

2. You can teach them that plants and children only grow properly when they receive adequate nutrition, and care

3. You can teach them about reproduction by introducing them to plants and bulbs that multiply.

4. You can teach them that some plants, like some people, are more fragile than others, and need more care as a result.

5. You can teach them that plants, as well as people, often wilt and may even die, when treated harshly.

6. You can teach them that plants, like people, have a life span. Sometimes, with extra special care, that life span can be extended, but only temporarily.

If you work with children of any age, don't neglect the benefits they can experience when you teach them to plant a few simple seeds and how to tend them as they grow.