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Grow It 3-5 / Week 03 / Grow It Day
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Week 03 · Life Cycles

Grow It Day

Grow It Day: Life-Cycle Wheel
// From seed to seed again
⏱ about 15 min

Grow It Day: Life-Cycle Wheel

Rocket spins a paper plate on his finger. "What if a life cycle could spin?"

Raven grabs crayons. "What do you notice about a circle? It has no end."

Nova hovers over the table. "Six slices, six stages," she hints. "Which comes first?"

The family gets ready to draw.

  1. A flowering plant goes seed, seedling, adult plant, flower, fruit, then new seeds.
  2. Pollen on the stigma helps the ovule become a seed. The ovary becomes the fruit.
  3. Annuals live one season. Biennials need two years. Perennials live more than two.
  4. Ferns make spores, not seeds.
  5. All life cycles include birth, growth, reproduction and death.
◇ MAKE A LIFE-CYCLE WHEEL
Get a paper plate and crayons or markers.
With a ruler, draw lines to split the plate into six slices.
In slice one, draw a bean seed.
Draw a sprouting seed, a seedling and an adult plant in the next slices.
Draw a flower in slice five and a pod with seeds in slice six.
Draw arrows around the edge to show the cycle repeats.
Take turns spinning the wheel and naming each stage.
Safety first
Use only kid-safe crayons or markers.
A grown-up does any cutting with scissors.
For a grown-up
Ask your child to point to where pollination happens on the wheel.
Ask: where on the wheel is our bean seedling right now?
SPIN THE WHEEL
  • Tap a card.
  • Then tap its spot.
1Slice 1
2Slice 2
3Slice 3
4Slice 4
A pod's seeds get planted in warm, damp soil. What do they do next?
WHY THIS EXERCISEThe seeds germinate, so the wheel starts around again.

Wonderful wheels! Next week we follow water up through roots and stems.

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