Fun With Botany!

Having recently attended the BCHEC Homeschool Conference in Kelowna, BC, I returned with renewed enthusiasm and fresh ideas. I'll be sharing these with you periodically, over the course of time, on my blog A Day in the Life of Our Homeschool Journey.

One of things that I came back inspired to do, was finish off our last semester with an emphasis on science. I don't know about you, but science can be so exciting for kids to learn about; however, I often find there is so little time at the end of the day to pursue all the fun activities that follow a course of scientific study and exploration.

My children love observation and so; being spring, I decided to wrap up this year's science with an in depth look at botany - on an elementary level. This lead me to Fulbright's Young Explorers Series - Exploring Creation with Botany. I love these text books for various reasons:

• They don't read like text books


• They make a great read aloud


• They take the student to a deeper level of scientific exploration


• They are full of quick and easy experiments


• Any student with a 4th grade reading level can read ahead on their own


• They have beautiful photographs and diagrams


• They make science fun


• They approach science with a creation perspective and point to God as the master architect

We are using this text as our main spine and supplementing with a wonderful book called One Small Square (used during nature walks), and a little growth kit from Ein-O called Root Power. This makes for a very rich, diverse, and fun- filled approach to the study of botany for students in an elementary level.


The Ein-O kit has been a point of particular interest. The kit is child sized and the experiments are straight forward and easy enough for eight year olds to perform on their own. The only drawback is that my kit not come with soil or seeds (even though it is shown in the picture).

Below are some pictures of the first experiment included in the kit. The experiment demonstrates that seeds can sprout with the absence of soil, but they do, in fact, need water. They learn that the soil provides nutrients for the plant and they observe that roots are indeed very strong - even with little seedlings. They are sprouting in cotton and cannot be easily dislodged!

Day 1 - Place seeds Day 4 - Observe seedlings

I share this to encourage those of you, who perhaps are waning just a little bit, concerning the completion of this last semester. If you have de-emphasized science in lieu of alternate academic studies, why not spend the last leg of the school year pursuing a course of scientific study with your children? Pick a topic that interests them and find ways to make it come alive for eager young minds. Perusing a homeschool catalogue or attending a homeschool conference can spark a new interest or sprout some new ideas. So come on, and get growing!