Life Cycle of a Bean Plant and Seed Planting Activities {Montessori Monday}

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It can be challenging to give children a love of gardening when you don’t have an area for an outdoor garden. But it can be done … and it can be lots of fun. In some ways, indoor gardening is my favorite. I love watching the reactions of my 3-year-old granddaughter, Zoey, to indoor gardening activities. We started with indoor transplanting activities and moved on to life cycle of a bean plant and seed planting activities.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links (at no cost to you).

Montessori Indoor- or Small-Space Gardening 

We started our gardening work by transplanting herbs and flowers. In this 59-second video, you can see how much fun Zoey had doing this work with her aunt (and my daughter) Christina.

You can see the resources and learn more about our Montessori indoor- or small-space gardening in a DIY sensory table.

Materials Used for Life Cycle of a Bean Plant and Seed Planting Activities

Here are the bean life cycle materials I have on my shelf that Zoey can work with at any time.

• Safari Ltd. Life Cycle of a Green Bean Plant (also available in the Montessori By Mom Shoots and Sprouts Toolbox)
• bean plant life cycle printables from Twinkl (Note: This is no longer free. You’ll see links to free life cycle of a plant printables below.)
• large plastic tray
• large hemmed work rug from Montessori Services

Free Life Cycle of a Plant Printables:

• Life Cycle of a Plant Printables on Teachers Pay Teachers (lots available) – Life Cycle of a Plant 3-Part Cards and Life Cycle of a Bean Plant Control Chart by Shanny Snyder are designed to go with the Safari Ltd. Life Cycle of a Green Bean Plantf
• Plant Life Cycle Sequence Cards from Education (This doesn’t go with the Safari Ltd. materials, but it shows the sequence of growing a plant in a pot)

For the bean germination activity, we used the bean growing kit from Montessori by Mom’s Shoots and Sprouts Toolbox

We only used this tray to plant our zinnia seeds, although the watering can is available for Zoey to use each day.

• large plastic tray
• small metal watering can
• zinnia growing kit from Montessori by Mom’s Shoots and Sprouts Toolbox (WonderSoil is lots of fun and is also available on Amazon.)

You can see my review along with the original work Zoey and I did with the shoots and sprouts toolbox when Zoey was 9½ months old. At that age, our work was a sensory activity.

Life Cycle of a Bean Plant Activity and Growing a Bean Plant

We used the materials I had from my post on Montessori-inspired life cycle activities. Zoey loves Safari Ltd. materials, and she enjoyed the plant life cycle ones, too. She was also interested in the process of starting the bean seed germination.

Zoey loves to check the bean plant growing on my patio door. We had a family gathering for Easter breakfast, and one of the first things Zoey checked was the bean plant. Soon it will be ready to plant in a pot with dirt!

Bean Plant Update: Zoey loved checking regularly on her bean plant. When it was ready, we transplanted it into a pot with dirt!

Planting zinnia seeds was another simple but fun indoor gardening activity. Zoey was amazed at how quickly they started to grow. These were later added to a larger pot with dirt, too.

Extensions to  Our Indoor Gardening Activities

Although not Montessori, we also used the Kindness Elves to place an extra emphasis on kindness and caring for the environment. Zoey loves the Kindness Elves! You can see how we used them for both our transplanting work and planting seeds in my post at BitsofPositivity.com on encouraging kindness with gardening activities and the Kindness Elves.

More Gardening Activities and Resources for Toddlers and Preschoolers