Growing beans in cotton lesson plan

Hello everyone!

A few weeks ago I shared with you the lesson plan “Chromatography” that I taught at a super cool school in New Zealand. Today I will share with you another lesson plan. This one is quite common. Who hasn’t grown beans in cotton as a kid? I had quite bad experiences with it as a child, as mine never grew, so I was quite anxious about doing this experiment. The school provided me with different types of beans this time, and the students could choose which one to use. All but one worked, and surprisingly it wasn’t the one I had chosen! (yes, I had to do the experiment to see if it was me who couldn’t grow a bean or the beans I used as a kid that didn’t work). Sometimes (or most of the times) I feel like a small child when I’m teaching. Doesn’t this happen to all teachers? I just think it’s an amazing feeling.

So here you have my lesson plan:

Main aim: Students will learn about the process of plant growing.

Secondary aim: Students will learn to be responsible as they will have to water their plants when needed.

Cross-curricular aim: Student autonomy

Materials: Book “The tiny seed”, one plastic glass per student, cotton wool, legume seeds and spray bottle with water.

Procedure:

Lead-in (15 min)

The teacher reads the book “The tiny seed” while the students sit on the mat.

After the story the teacher tells them they will do a science experiment related with the story and makes them guess what they will do.

Explanation and preparation (10 min)

The students get the instructions while sitting on the mat.

The teacher does a complete example of what they have to do (suggested on before teaching feedback by their teacher).

To make sure the students understood what has to be done, the teacher asks some students to explain the activity.

The students are put in pairs (suggested by their teacher) and distributed in different tables and the materials are put on all the tables.

Experiment (15 min)

Each student follows the instructions given and plants the seeds in the cotton wool.

Follow-up (15 min)

Each student gets a handout where they have to draw the evolution of their plant. They can start when they finish with the experiment. They draw the first picture showing how their glass looks now. They will have to draw another five pictures when they get some free time, finish their work earlier or at any other time set by the teacher.

Feedback (5 min)

All the students sit on the mat and we talk about what they have done, what they expect to happen with the seeds, when do they think it will grow, etc. They make guesses and the teacher writes them down in a calendar.

Have you done this experiment before? What activities have you done before and after? I really hope you liked it!

Marta ♥