Have your kids create their very own Greenhouse that allows them to watch the life cycle of a flower or plant! An easy STEM Activity for kids that promotes learning and creativity.
The weeks are crawling and those “I’m bored” whines are showing up more and more. While the kids do have school work every day, the weekends call for indoor activities. Both Jude and Teagan enjoy going to the garden shop but we have not visited one just yet due to the lockdown. I decided to bring a little garden activity indoors for us!
My Little Greenhouse – STEM Activity For Kids
When I first brought out all of the supplies for this activity, Teagan was concerned about how this little Greenhouse would work. The best part about this process was that she had recently studied the Life Cycle of a plant so she already understood the process. We set out our supplies and we started our activity and lesson!
1. One a large piece of cardstock, draw the outline of your greenhouse. Make sure you outline a space large enough to hold a ziplock bag in order to have a nice area to view the sprouts.
2. Cut out the greenhouse and decorate the greenhouse by giving it a title and marking the date the seeds were planted.
3. In a small bowl, soak the seeds in water for a few minutes. TIP: make sure you pick up some fast sprouting seeds in order to make this STEM activity even more fun! Beans, lettuce, Marigolds and Zinnias are good options.
4. Dip a cotton ball into water so it is damp, not dripping with water.
5. Place some soaked seeds onto a the cotton ball and sandwich the seeds with another damp cotton ball.
6. Place 4 to 5 cotton ball/seed sandwiches into a ziplock bag.
7. Seal ziplock bag – removing the extra air from the bag.
8. Using tape, secure the ziplock on the back of the greenhouse making sure the cotton balls can be seen through the cut out of the greenhouse.
9. Secure greenhouse in a window that gets a lot of sun.
10. Within a few days you will start to see sprouts! Make sure your kiddos check out the growth every day! So fun!
The picture above was taken just one day after we “planted” our seeds. The kids LOVED seeing how quickly the sprouts started to show up in the greenhouses. It has been fun to discuss the life cycle of our flowers and anxiously check the sprouts everyday! We are considering doing another round of greenhouses and putting them in a different window to see which window makes the sprouts grow faster!
