How does something smaller than your fingernail turn into a sunflower taller than a grown-up? Today you will find out — with a story, six new words, a real planting, and some garden maths.
Where does a giant sunflower come from?
Read Sam the Seed out loud — five tiny paragraphs, with a sentence that lights up as you go.
seed, soil, root, stem, leaf, flower. Say each one, then point at it outside.
Pot, hole, seed, cover, water, sun — in the right order. Wrong order? The seed tells you.
Count leaves, finish growing patterns, and trace the word seed with a crayon pen.
That living things grow, change and need things. Today we take one of those needs — water — and watch it wake a sleeper up.
Deep under the dirt, in the cold and the dark, lay Sam Seed. Sam was asleep. Everything was quiet.
Then the spring rain came, dripping down, down, down. “Wake up, little seed,” said the rain. Sam drank and drank until his coat went soft.
First, Sam pushed a root down into the soil. The root drank water. The root held Sam tight, the way your legs hold you up.
Next, a green stem climbed up, up, up, towards the warm light. Two leaves opened like little hands catching sunshine.
The sun shone. The leaves made sweet food for the plant. Sam grew tall, and then — POP! — a bright yellow flower opened up.
A bee landed. A bird stopped to look. And inside the flower were one hundred tiny seeds, ready to start the whole story again.
Inside the hard coat there are three things: a baby plant, a lunchbox of food, and a waterproof skin. No water, no growing. Put a seed in a cupboard for ten years and it is still waiting.
🔍 Rub a soaked bean seed — you can peel its coat off.The very first thing out of the seed is not a leaf — it is a root. It anchors the plant like your legs hold you up, and it drinks water from the soil. Tiny root hairs at the tip do most of the drinking.
📏 Today the root is about 1 cm long.A pale green stem pushes up, up, up and pokes its nose through the soil. The stem is the plant's straw: water goes up one set of tiny tubes, food goes down another.
📏 Height today: 4 cm. Two more leaves next week.Two leaves flatten out and turn towards the light. They are wide on purpose — more sun caught, more food made. Shade one leaf with a piece of paper for three days and see what happens.
✋ Count them: 7 leaves on this plant right now.The plant spends its leftover energy on one big thing: a flower. Petals are coloured so insects can find them. A bee gets nectar; the flower gets its pollen carried to the next flower over.
🐝 One sunflower head holds 1,000+ tiny flowers.The petals fall. Where the flower was, seeds grow. One seed became a plant; that plant becomes a hundred seeds. Next spring, a bird or the wind will plant them for free.
🌻 From 1 seed to about 100 seeds — that's the maths of growing.Count the leaves on the plant. Tip: point with your pencil and say each number.
How many on the left? ______ · How many on the right? ______
Can they retell the story in order — root first, then stem, then leaves, then flower? Ordering is the real skill here, not the words.
Plant three cups: one dark cupboard, one sunny sill, one with boiled (cold) water. Compare in a week. Which variable changed?
Do the story and the six word cards only. Maths and quiz can wait for Lesson 2's warm-up.
Give them a "plant diary" — one drawing per week, same plant, same page. Measurement comes later; noticing comes first.
We met the seed — next we find out what it asks for. Water, light, warmth and air, plus a two-plant experiment where one gets a drink and one doesn't. Bring last week's cup so we can measure it.