By Berwick ECEs
This year, the kids from room 65 at DDA’s Berwick CDC were learning about spring by growing beans. They made little greenhouses and had a choice to plant either green or scarlet runner beans and then monitor the progress.
After about two weeks, the children could see the different sizes of the spouted plants. Some seeds didn’t spout at all and some seeds grew taller than the others. We had a discussion and used an example of how every child in our class grows at different rates and sizes. The children could see that everyone was unique and that they all grew differently.
We helped the children to transfer their little plants into pots. One of the kids who liked working with numbers took on the duty of measuring the growth of the plants daily. They also observed how fast the bean plants grew in the pot, some grew several inches overnight!
When the weather was warmer, we moved the pots from the greenhouses outside into our main yard. We put 6 pots in a circle and used long bamboo sticks to form a teepee-shaped bean garden. The children took turns to water the bean plants and we watched them grow daily. The bean plants grew big and tall and provided a shaded area for everyone to play in and enjoy. It was worth the wait and we are so proud of our children!