Growing Plants

In the second unit of Kindergarten, students explore living things and discover what plants and animals need to survive. This page provides a snapshot of lesson five which has students conducting a class experiment with bean plants to observe what they need to live and grow.

Science Background for Teachers:

This teacher background is intended to provide teachers with an in-depth explanation of the scientific phenomena that students will be exploring in the unit. In the case of this Life Science unit, teachers will focus on how plants grow and develop.

A plant is a living thing that makes its own food from sunlight. A common misconception is that plants primarily need sunlight for warmth. While plants cannot grow if temperatures are too hot or too cold, the primary reason that plants depend on sunlight is that they use sunlight, along with water and carbon dioxide, to make their own food through a process called photosynthesis. This is different from animals, which have to eat other organisms for food.

With enough air and water, a seed will grow into the same kind of plant that it came from. For example, the seeds from carrot plants will grow into carrot plants, while the seeds from apple trees will grow into apple trees. As the seed grows, the plant breaks out of its seed coat and begins to sprout, a process called germination. Plants first grow roots and a stem, and then leaves. Once a flowering plant has grown roots, a stem, and leaves, it then grows buds and flowers. Flowers are external structures where seeds form and where pollination occurs. Flowers attract pollinators so the plant can make new seeds. Finally, the plant produces fruits that attract animals, or produce seed casings that allow the seed to travel by wind or water. The seeds grow into new plants and start the plant life cycle over again.

Supports Grade K

Science Lesson: Discovering How to Grow Plants

In this lesson, students carry out a class experiment with three different cups of bean plants to observe what plants need to live and grow. Students will place the plants under different conditions to notice what resources they need to develop well.

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Science Big Ideas

  • Plants use their different parts to help them get what they need to survive.
  • Plants need water and sunlight to live and grow.

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Science Essential Questions

  • What do plants need to live and grow?
  • How does the water cycle help plants grow?
  • Why does the plant need to grow a stem before it can grow leaves or flowers?
  • What will the plant use its leaves for once they grow?
  • What are some of the ways that plants are helpful to people?

Common Science Misconceptions

Misconception: Plants are not alive because we cannot see them move.

Fact: Plants are alive because they meet all of the requirements for life. For example, there is movement within plants; we just cannot see it.

Science Vocabulary

Flowers : the parts of a plant that make seeds

Leaves : the parts of a plant that collect sunlight and make food

Plant : a living thing that makes its own food from sunlight

Roots : the parts of the plant that hold it in place and take in nutrients and water from the soil

Seed : a young plant inside a protective coat; needs air and water to grow

Stem : the part of a plant that holds the leaves and flowers in place; water and nutrients travel through the stem to the rest of the plant

Lexile(R) Certified Non-Fiction Science Reading (Excerpt)

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Hands-on Science Activity

During this hands-on mini-lesson, students conduct an experiment to determine what plants need to live and grow. They carefully observe and record three different young bean plants (sprouted from a previous lesson) under different conditions. Before the experiment, students discuss and predict what they think plants need to grow. Then, they test their predictions by providing each plant with water and/or sunlight or both over a period of a week or two, to see how they grow with or without these elements. This activity helps students to practice their scientific skills of using observational evidence to make a claim.

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Science Assessments

KnowAtom incorporates formative and summative assessments designed to make students thinking visible for deeper student-centered learning.

  • Vocabulary Check
  • Lab Checkpoints
  • Concept Check Assessment 
  • Concept Map Assessment 
  • And More...

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Science Standards

See How KnowAtom Aligns to NGSS Science Standards

Discover hands-on screens-off core science curriculum for student centered K-8 classrooms. KnowAtom supports classrooms with all hands-on materials, curriculum, and professional development to support mastery of the standards.

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Standards citation: NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Neither WestEd nor the lead states and partners that developed the Next Generation Science Standards were involved in the production of this product, and do not endorse it.

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