From Seed to Plant Activities

What happens when you plant just one little bean? The book One Bean is a wonderful, simple book to use as an introduction to any From Seed to Plant unit for your preschool and kindergarten classroom or home school. The book takes children through a plant's growth cycle, from planting the bean to the tasty end result. Children will also learn what plants need to grow (water, sun, soil, and air).

Book: One Bean

About the Story:
This science concept book follows two children as they plant one bean and watch it grow. Through the curious eyes of young children, readers are led through the step-by-step process of plant care and the plant growth cycle. One bean eventually becomes many beans that taste delicious straight from the pod. Each step of the bean’s growth cycle is presented in simple, straightforward text as the children in the story carefully tend to their potted bean. Readers learn about what a bean seed needs to grow and how the resulting bean sprout develops leaves, buds, flowers, and finally, pods.

Story Time Activity:

Background Information: When a seed gets warmth and has air and water, it starts to change. When the stem and the root emerge from the seed, it's called germination.

Bean Sprout Vocabulary:
bean: a seed that develops in a bean pod on a bean plant
skin: the thin covering on the outside of a seed
root: the plant part that brings nutrients and water into a plant from the soil
sprout: the first growth of a plant appearing above ground
leaf: the plant part that absorbs sunlight to make energy for the plant
stem: the plant part that carries nutrients to the leaves and flowers and supports the plant
soil: dirt for planting seeds
grow: to get bigger, to develop
sun: a large star that provides warmth and light on earth
to plant: to put a seed in the ground, so it can grow

Show children a variation of beans. Discuss how they look, feel, and smell.

(NOTE: Instruct children not to eat or put the raw beans into their mouth. Explain to children that beans need to be cooked before they are safe to eat. Especially, do NOT eat lima beans raw. When eaten raw, lima beans produce a poison.)

I'm a Little Seed
(Tune: I'm a Little Teapot)
(Author unknown)

I plant a little seed in the cold, cold ground.
Out comes the yellow sun, big and round.
Down come the raindrops soft and slow.
Up comes the plant grow, grow, grow!

Explain to children that a bean is the seed of the bean plant. Tell them that we eat cooked beans and soybeans and that they are also used in many common foods, such as soy sauce, vegetable oil, salad dressing, and snack foods. They are even used in building materials, ink for newspapers, crayons, on CDs and DVDs, and in sunscreen, lip balm, hand lotion, and other makeup products. Read the book One Bean.

One Bean Story Sequencing and Re-telling Activity (KidsSoup Resource Libary Members only)

Preschool Activities:

Media Root

One Bean Extension Activities

Five Little Bean Sprouts Felt Story

Print our free Pots, Beans and Bean Sprouts printables (option: use real beans), laminate if desired, and cut apart. Attach magnet strips or dots to the backs of each one. Begin with all five pots lined up on the magnet board. As you recite the words in the rhyme, remove one bean and add one bean sprout above each pot at the end of each verse.

Five Little Beans
KidsSoup, Inc.

Five little beans planted in pots.
One bean wakes up and pops right out!

Four little beans and one bean sprout.
Another bean wakes up and pops right out!

Three little beans and two bean sprouts.
Another bean wakes up and pops right out!

Preschool Activities:

Media Root

Two little beans and three bean sprouts.
Another wakes up and pops right out!

One little bean and four bean sprouts.
Another wakes up and pops right out!

Five little bean sprouts growing toward the sun.
How many beans are left? Now, there are none.

Free printables:

Preschool Activities:

Media Root

10 Little Beans Movement Activity

Preschool Activities:

Media Root

Talk about how the little bean sprout pushed itself through the dirt.

Draw ten bean shapes on to green paper. Cut out each bean and mark it with a number from 1 -10. Laminate the beans if desired. Tape the beans in sets of five (in order by number) to a flat surface in an open area, either in the classroom or outside.

Choose ten children to stand on a bean. Let them call out the number they are standing on, and then curl up on a bean.

Introduce the following rhyme, recited to the rhythm of “Ten Little Indians.” Explain that children complete the action (in numerical order) if their number is called.

10 Little Beans
KidsSoup, Inc

(Children pop up in order from 1 to 10.)

One little, two little, three little brown beans, (Pop, pop, pop)
four little, five little, six little brown beans, (Pop, pop, pop)
seven little, eight little, nine little brown beans, (Pop, pop, pop)
ten little brown beans pop! (Pop)

Repeat the rhyme with additional actions, beginning again at one: hop, jump, turn, etc., until beans are tired out.

Variation:
Let all children curl up in a circle. Explain to children that you will walk around and tap some children. If the children get tapped they neeed to pop up. Repeat with the remaining children. When all children are standing, repeat with the other actions: hop, jump, turn, etc.