ROOTS & SHOOTS

We have been learning about plants and what it takes to grow a plant (seed, good soil, air, water, sunlight, etc.). We have also been learning about the different parts of plants (flower, leaves, stems, roots, etc.). We also talked about how plant food is more like plant "vitamins" than plant food because plants actually make their own food using the sun and a process called "photosynthesis". We didn't get into the whole process, just the idea of it:)
So, above is a picture of our first home grown plant for homeschool use - a green bean plant. The boys took the plant out daily, since it is still a little cool here, and brought it in at night. They made sure that it had water before taking it out daily and it was a really great experiment for us. Dad even put us a little mulch on the top of the plant when we were mulching the yard to give it the red you see in the picture. The boys thought that was too cool.
Here are the roots of our plant. The boys seemed especially amazed at this part of the growing process. I told them that since the green bean plant was now a seedling, it would soon be growing out of the container and we would either need to give it to someone to grow in a garden or throw it away. They are not too happy about this and want to know why, in our small little yard, we can't have a garden of our own and plant our plant in it. As you can tell, they have really become attached to the green beans.