Lesson 7: GROWING SEEDLINGS
Garden Work

Because of time constraints we had pre-ordered a number of vegetable and flower seeds. We had chosen a selection of showy, easy to grow plants that would be suitable to put in the flower beds around the school grounds. The choice was sunflowers, marigolds, corn flowers, lettuces and zinnias.

Materials needed:

Packets of seed
Selection of punnets
Seed starting mix: 1 sand : 1 vermiculite : 0.5 compost
Craft sticks and soft pencils for labelling

We discussed how to make the potting mix and how deep to sow the seeds. Then each child planted one or two punnets of seeds and labelled them with his or her name and the plant name.

Mike and I took the punnets home to look after. This ensured that they would germinate without any problems. It also absolved the teachers from having to worry about small plants.