While creating super easy seed tape with kids’ hands are busy and their minds are open to absorbing new information! Also, look at this post Easy Seeds and Gardening Unit Study for Kids (Middle – Upper Elementary) for more ideas.
Seed tape makes a great activity during the spring months.
Not only is it teaching a practical life skill, but you are incorporating math and science into their learning as well. It is the perfect rainy-day activity while you wait for planting season.
Seed taping makes for a sweet homemade gift too. Grandma might really enjoy a little help with her garden.
Look at this list to make fun seed tape with kids:
- Assorted seeds
- Toilet paper
- All-purpose flour
- Wooden craft stick
- Water
- A small bowl
- Permanent marker
- Ruler/measuring tape
- Clear zippered bags
- Tweezers
Seed tape can be used in small or large gardens, containers, or even cut into small pieces for seed starting pots.
12 Easy Seed Tape Steps With Kid
Pull out a length of toilet paper that is easy to work with, I recommend from 2’ to 4’ depending on your garden space. If your toilet paper is more than 1-ply you will want to separate each layer.
Use a sharpie to write the name of your plant carefully at the end of the roll so you don’t get confused.
In a small bowl stir together just enough flour and water to create a sticky paste, it should be like a thick pudding. A couple of teaspoons of flour will go a long way.
Mark off spots for your seeds by making a dot with your sharpie on your lengths of toilet paper, this will depend on the recommended planting distance of the flowers or vegetables you are planting, you can find this information on the back of your seed packet.
This is a great time to include some math in your child’s activity, have them use a ruler to mark off the spaces.
Drip a bit of your paste on your mark using a craft stick.
Use your tweezers to drop a seed or two onto the paste dot, tape down gently.
Leave your paper out and allow the paste to dry completely, this is an important step, if you move to the next step before it’s dry it will stick together and become a big unusable mess.
Once your paste is completely dry roll up your seed tape into a tidy little roll and place inside a plastic baggie, don’t forget to use your sharpie to write the name of your plant on the baggie.
Gardening Activities for Kids
Store your seed tapes until ready to use!
When ready to plant you can use the entire length or trim them into smaller pieces, even a few squares for container gardening will work!
Dig a shallow trench in the prepared soil and unroll your seed tape, cover with a thin layer of soil, water well.
Remember to identify your rows with plant markers.
Turn this simple activity into a larger unit study by including some other activities that go along with it well and add a little more to it.
11 Seed Tape Unit Study Ideas
One/ Track your planting from seed tape to harvest with a gardening journal.
Two/ Incorporate art by sketching your plants.
Three/ Work in some math by having your child draw out a square foot garden and filling in the plants you plan to grow.
Four/ Practice measurement by having them track the plant’s growth with a ruler.
Five/ Purchase a rain gauge and track the rain for the season on a simple bar graph.
Six/ Use leftover seeds for a seed sorting activity. Look at my tips here for Easy Seed and Gardening Unit Study for Kids (Middle – Upper Elementary)
Seven/ Create a garden budget and have your child compare prices and help choose plants and other items needed to fit in the budget.
Eight/ Make plant markers for art and writing practice.
Nine/ Check out books from the library about seeds and planting, I have a list of suggestions below!
Ten/ Draw and label the parts of a seed.
Eleven/ Photograph your plant from seed to harvest and create a book.
Next, look at some of our favorite books.
11 Gardening With Kids Books & Fun Resources
As a true bibliophile no unit study would be complete without a strong list of books to support a topic. Here is a great list for everyone in the family.
Learn the difference between a farrow and a barrow, and what distinguishes a weanling from a yearling. Country and city mice alike will delight in Julia Rothman’s charming illustrated guide to the curious parts and pieces of rural living. Dissecting everything from the shapes of squash varieties to how a barn is constructed and what makes up a beehive to crop rotation patterns, Rothman gives a richly entertaining tour of the quirky details of country life.
Packed with garden-based activities that promote science, math, reading, writing, imaginative play, and arts and crafts, The Garden Classroom offers a whole year of outdoor play and learning ideas—however big or small your garden.
Explore the secret realm beneath the dirt that brings the world of nature to life: Follow a young girl and her grandmother on a journey through the year planning, planting, and harvesting their garden—and learn about what's happening in the dirt to help make it all happen.Up in the garden, the world is full of green—leaves and sprouts, growing vegetables, ripening fruit. But down in the dirt exists a busy world—earthworms dig, snakes hunt, skunks burrow—populated by all the creatures that make a garden their home
A refreshing source of ideas to help your children learn to grow their own patch of earth, Gardening Lab for Kids encourages children to get outside and enjoy nature. This fun and creative book features 52 plant-related activities set into weekly lessons, beginning with learning to read maps to find your heat zone, moving through seeds, soil, composting, and then creating garden art and appreciating your natural surroundings.
Whether inside or outside, decorative or edible, this book is full of gardening projects large and small. Easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions are accompanied by photographs that guide the aspiring gardening through planting all kinds of gardens.
MONTESSORI FOR TODDLERS: Our gardening tool set encourages kids to play outside & learn about plants, nature & sustainability. Perfect for the yard and sand box.
OUTDOOR LEARNING ACTIVITIES: Our Kids Garden Set is great for Occupational Therapy & Developing Fine Motor Skills. Suitable for Boys and girls.
A Gardening Research Workbook & Planning Guide for Teens, Kids and Families! Perfect for Homeschooling Science, Nature Study, Botany and Home Economics!
Designed for teens, but perfect for Ages 9+ (Younger students will need some extra help).
{Raised Garden Bed for Kids} We designed the children raised garden bed carefully, so that your children can feel the happiness of plant growth and the magic of natural life. Our raised garden bed deep enough to provide your plants and vegetables with ample room to breathe and grow healthy.
Flowers, trees, fruits—plants are all around us, but where do they come from? With simple language and bright illustrations, non-fiction master Gail Gibbons introduces young readers to the processes of pollination, seed formation, and germination. Important vocabulary is reinforced with accessible explanation and colorful, clear diagrams showing the parts of plants, the wide variety of seeds, and how they grow. The book includes instructions for a seed-growing project, and a page of interesting facts about plants, seeds, and flowers. A nonfiction classic, and a perfect companion for early science lessons and curious young gardeners.
Kids see plants, flowers, and trees around them every day. In this lively and educational reader, they'll learn how those plants grow. Kids will take this magical journey from seed pollination to plant growth, learning about what plants need to thrive and grow with the same careful text, brilliant photographs, and the fun approach National Geographic Readers are known for.
An easy and fun introduction to plant biology! With the able assistance of Thing 1 and Thing 2 - the Cat in the Hat explores the world of plants. Kids will learn about the various parts of plants, seeds, and flowers; basic photosynthesis and pollination; and seed dispersal.
Seed Tape Science Words
You can use the following words for vocabulary, spelling, copy work, and journal starters.
- Angiosperms- Flowering plants.
- Gymnosperms-Non-flowering plants.
- Tuber- Thickened underground part of the stem.
- Rhizome- A horizontal underground stem with lateral shoots and roots.
- Corm-Short swollen underground plant stem.
- Bulb- An underground storage organ with a short stem and fleshy scale leaves.
- Germination- When a seed begins to develop after dormancy.
- Bud- Flower or plant that is beginning to bloom
- Seedling- A young plant, mostly raised from seed and not cuttings.
- Seed Coat- Protective outer coat of a seed.
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