Using Seeds as Manipulatives

Seeds have many uses as teaching tools so I recommend you always have some on hand. This article will list for you all the ways that I have used seeds with my daughter and you can use them in your K-2 seed lesson unit.

Math: Seeds are great when learning math concepts. They teach younger children how to add and subtract. They teach older kids how to multiply and divide. You can give your child 10 seeds. Tell them 5 of their seeds blew away in the wind. Have them take 5 of the seeds away. Now ask them how many seeds they have left. So this again with a situation that calls for addition. Have them practice with the seeds until they grasp the concept. You can even make up a worksheet of word problems that call for your child to use the seeds. They can work on it quietly at their desk. Just make sure you give them a handful of seeds to work with.

Science: This may be the most obvious use for the seeds. When your child is learning about plants and how they grow, you can have them plant their own seeds. One project I did with my daughter was pick 5 different kinds of seeds and record which ones grew the fastest. It is important that you label your paper cups with the name of the seed inside of it. It is also important that all seeds receive the same amount of sun, soil, and water. Keep your findings in a notebook.

History: Ask your child what things the Pilgrims might have been able to fit on their ships? They had to plan for a long trip. One of the things that didn't take up hardly any room were seeds. Pilgrims brought many seeds with them so they would have something to plant when they got to the new land. Pilgrims couldn't bring bushels and bushels of corn, pumpkins, etc. on their ship for two reasons. 1. The ship couldn't hold all of the people and all of that food, and 2. The vegetables would have gone bad by the time the Pilgrims got to America. So bringing seeds made more sense.

English: You don't use the actual seeds in this class, but you can have your child write a report on seeds. They could write about what they learned about seeds, or they can write a how to article about how seeds grow in to plants.

Art: Seeds make some fun pictures. Children can draw outlines of something they like and then use seeds of different colors to fill in the outline. You can get a whole bag of seeds for $.89 so it is still affordable to buy 5 bags of seeds with each bag being a different color. Just draw your outline on a piece of paper and then place glue all over. Stick the seeds in the glue. Wait for the glue to dry and you have a really cool seed picture.

Home economics: My daughter and I were making a pumpkin craft to celebrate the harvest time when we felt bad about throwing away all of the seeds. We decided to bake the seeds and eat them. We washed the seeds off, sprinkled them with salt, and then baked them in the oven. When they were done we poured them in to a baggie and ate them. They were delicious and they are also a very healthy snack to eat.