I love teaching plants! Every year, my students and I grow bean plants out of lima beans. Their progress pics are always so much fun to see. Check out my outline below of how to make your lima bean experiment a breeze, plus other engaging plants activities your students will love.
Materials needed for the Lima Bean Experiment:
- Paper Towels
- Water
- Clear Cups
- Black Sharpies
- Lima Beans
Getting the students to wrap their paper towels into a circle is always tough! But, letting them try and try to get their cups perfect is always fun. When the students get disappointed because their seeds won’t stay on the side of the cup, that’s a learning experience. That’s my opportunity to teach even more science and tell them that their seeds at the bottom of the cup will be an experiment just like the ones on the side of the cup.
Observing the Seed:
We watched the seeds for a few weeks and wrote about what we saw in our learning logs. For a while, the students were drawing and writing about the same thing and getting quite frustrated!
Learning About Plants While We Wait:
There is a lot of waiting in this experiment. It’ll take a while for the bean to grow and sprout. While they’re observing, I suggest starting a plant unit! I have an engaging plant activities set just for you! Here is a look at fold-and-go books, printables, passages, and cut and glue pages from my plant unit that are perfect teaching plants activities!
Love our fold and go mini books. Flip them over, fold them twice, and the kids are ready to go!
These teaching plants activities even come with comprehension questions!
I’m wild about passages. They are short and sweet and teach the kids what they need to know while keeping them responsible for reading with their comprehension questions at the bottom.
And print-and-go printables ready for supplemental lessons!
Grab the teaching plants activities unit here!
(Link: Plants No-Prep Pack) (Link: Plants Flip Book)
Want to read more science blogs?
- Teaching Students about the Water Cycle
- Landforms Activities
- Tips for Teaching Weather to Kids
- Spring Life Cycles Science Unit Tips
