Exploring Seeds

We use Exploring Nature With Children as part of our relaxed home learning. It gives me structure for our daily walks and outside play time. It also helps me figure out what Big Kid is interested in so I can find her new books and materials.

This week we explored seeds. Our Monday morning walk was spent finding and picking up as many seeds as we could. We ended up bringing a full bucket home and Big Kid pulled out her trusty magnifying glass to take a closer look. She loves this wooden magnifying glass now, which I hope she gets better at using as she gets older.

This week we also read a variety of books about seeds. We got to pull out one of Big Kid’s favorites: The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss. This is such a simple, yet profound story of a boy’s faith in a planted carrot seed, when everyone around him is convinced it won’t sprout.

The other books we read were:

Seeds Sprout! by Mary Dodson Wade – This beginning nonfiction book includes everything a toddler or pre-schooler would want to know about seeds and how they sprout. The photographs are perfect companions to the text. A great book to start with!

A Seed is Sleepy by Donna Hutts Aston – Like other books in this series, the illustrations in this book are truly works of art and convey so much information on their own. A Seed is Sleepy taught us so much about seeds, and is the perfect starting point for deeper discussions on a variety of related topics.

Because of an Acorn by Lola M. Schefer and Adam Schaefer – I adore the illustrations in this book. There are a few die-cuts adding to the intrigue. The text tells the story of an acorn planted and the results that ripple through the surrounding ecosystem. This is one we will revisit as Big Kid gets older.

Flip, Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move by JoAnn Early Macken – Big Kid found this book so interesting. Her little 2 1/2 year old brain had never thought about all the ways seeds move, and come on, I don’t blame her. She was wide eyed and just loved the part about seeds being moved by “animal poop”. This is another one we will revisit in the coming years. The poetic text and detailed illustrations captured our imaginations.

What is your favorite seed book?