Kids love it when you give them hands-on projects. If you give them the chance to make a mess they will play all day. If you give them a project that's hands-on in the dirt, they'll love you forever and learn a ton!
Students can learn a lot from gardening like:
- Photosynthesis
- The parts of a flower
- How flowers grow
- How weather affects flowers
Those are only a few things you can do with students and seed projects. Fast-growing seeds make great projects for school and you can use them in science and math! Seed planting is a fantastic way to measure the growth in plants each day.
As teachers we need to plan a week in advance, so nobody has time to think a month ahead to plant seeds. You can take your pick for a choice of seed online, but you need fast-sprouting seeds.
If you want to make your science lessons more engaging if you give them fast-growing edible plant seeds. Kids will love to eat what they grow!
What you need for successful seed experiments
The first thing that we need to grow plants in the classroom is flower pots. You can get fun and give your kids an art project. If you make your flower pot look like a cartoon character you can choose grass seeds to make the grass grow like hair. Most kids will love this. Each day you can measure the hair and when it gets too long, the students can give their plant a haircut.
If you don't have access to flower pots you can choose K cups plant starters and bring gardening opportunities to the classroom. The magic of gardening is that you can teach students responsibility
Teach kids about plants with seeds
Vegetable seeds make for engaging growth in the classroom. You can make a companion carrot and put eyes and a mouth on it. A companion plant is a fantastic way to teach younger students responsibility. Common choices for companion plants are lettuce seeds, carnivorous plants, and bean shoots
Bean shoots are extra fun because when they grow you can show your students how to the green shoots out of their outer coat. You can do so many things with bean shoots. No matter the type of seed you choose, classroom activities will be much more fun with a companion plant.
Don't limit your options for classroom science projects with seeds. Some teachers might not know about all the seeds they have available to them so we made a list of fun gardening ideas you can use with your students. We will show you the best seeds for the best teachers. So, let's jump in and see which seeds teachers think are best.
1. Back to the Roots Organic Mushroom Growing Kit
This is the ideal plant for teachers who don't want to make a mess but still want students to have fun! The gardening process for mushrooms is simple and easy to follow. You can also teach your students how mushrooms break down other materials. Fungi always make for an excellent science fair project.
You can use these for students at any level. In elementary school, you can show them how fungi are different from plants, and in high school or middle school, you can show them decomposition.
2. 43 Assorted Vegetable & Herb Seeds
Do you want to bring some color to your classroom? Well, this set of 43 colorful plants is the best thing you can do to bring a rainbow to the class! You get the following seeds in the set:
- Pumpkin seeds
- Radish seeds
- Sweet basil seeds
- Various kinds of bean seed
Don't forget, you get 43 seeds in all. So you can create an entire science curriculum for children based around plants with all these seeds! We recommend that you do an experiment with your elementary school students where you give some plants warm water and other plants cold water. Asking them what they think will happen is a great way to involve them in the scientific process.
3. Survival Garden Seeds - Champion Radish
Wanna teach your students about renewable food substances? What better way to do it than with unfamiliar and familiar foods? Many students will know about common foods like cucumber, but not all of them will have eaten radish before. You can teach them about home-grown food while showing them the absorption of water through the soil into the plant.
Teaching students how to grow their own food is a valuable skill. If they learn this from an early age they can understand how the plant lifecycle works and grow their own vegetable garden.
4. Marigold Flower Seed
Marigolds have a very satisfying blossom. Adults love to see them in bloom. Can you imagine the joy on your student's faces as they see all the colorful blossoms they produce in the classroom? These are the perfect flower for teaching how extra water is used by a flower. Simply split the stem and put each end into a cup of colored water. Students will love to see the flower change colors!
5. A Pumpkin Halloween experience for children
Pumpkins are a great fall time activity for you to do in the classroom. You can make growing a pumpkin into a full month-long project. Watching its journey from seed to full-grown plant is fascinating.
When the pumpkin seeds start to sprout you can expect to see a good-sized, sturdy shoot that will get longer until small round pumpkins appear. Then, once the pumpkin is finished growing you can measure whose pumpkin is the biggest.
You can take this activity a step further by having a Halloween pumpkin decorating contest. Students will love to make the perfect pumpkin. Pumpkins are the perfect plants for children because you can do so much with them. We think it is fun to have a small pumpkin rolling race!
6. Mixed Sunflower Seeds
Sunflowers need 6-8 hours of light a day to grow. Teach your students about the energy in light that helps plants to grow big and healthy. It's a great kid science project and your students will be engaged and learn a lot. You can measure how quickly the indoor plants grow with less sunlight and compare them to the outdoor sunflowers.
7. Wheatgrass Seeds
Gardening books can teach your students so much about plants, but they will never teach how easily grass can grow. Introduce kids to gardening with a plant that will grow in almost any condition. It will inspire your students and teach them that they can do anything they try their best. Classroom projects with grass are endless, too.
Plants are great choices for science projects
When choosing the best plant for a science project, as teachers we need to think about day morning plants and night evening plants. You can choose the type of plant best for the hypothesis your students decide on. If you need help choosing a hypothesis, we've got you covered. You can turn any of these questions into a fun and engaging project.
- What is the easiest seed to grow indoors?
- What are fast-growing seeds for classrooms?
- Which seeds will germinate the fastest?
Use the above questions to help your students understand variables while growing their seeds. You can ask them what will happen if you take a bottle with water and put the seeds inside? Will they continue to grow or will they die? Repeat the process with an empty bottle of water while you chart your results.
Misformonster.com has these adorable plant growth trackers. You can track the plant growth daily and it allows space for your kids to get creative and draw the plants.
You can download the tracker here.
Projects with plants for older students
If you teach middle school or high school, plants might seem a little boring for your students. However, if you get them involved in gardening they will have a lot of fun. Exploring plants through observation can lead students on a quest to learn about how flower blossoms occur, and why green plants are green.
You can modify this lesson plan for older students using the plants that you grow.
Final thoughts
Growing plants from seeds give you an opportunity to teach kids about the world. They're fun, engaging and keep your students wanting to learn. As teachers, we have a duty to make every lesson fun and engaging. Our job is to spark student's curiosity. Are you ready to become the teacher that gets the results?
Are you ready to buy some seeds to grow the minds of your students? Our list has the best seeds for the best teachers. Your students will learn a lot and you will reap all the rewards. Get to growing and have some fun - just remember to make it educational. Our goal is to always keep students engaged and foster their imagination and discovery skills. Happy teaching!
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