Exploring the Life Cycle of a Plant

There are loads of cool ways kids can explore the plant lifecycle.

But a lot of plant lifecycle activities focus on the germination of the seeds and conditions needed to make the seeds grow - light, water, warmth, nutrients.

Poppies offer a fabulous opportunity to explore the end of the plant lifecycle and the amazing ways in which seeds propagate themselves.

Common wild poppies germinate very easily and will grow in poor soil with little attention.

The flowers are loved by bees and butterflies and are a pretty addition to a herb garden.

The really cool bit in the poppy's lifecycle starts when the flower petals blow away and the seed heads start to grow.

Try opening a few heads whilst they, the stems and the leaves are still green. You will find a wonderful structure divided into segments containing hundreds of white seeds. The lining of each segment is white and moist whilst the seeds continue to grow.

As soon as the seeds are ready - turning brown & then black - multiple holes will appear at the top of the poppy head and the remainder of the plant will die with the stem turning brown and brittle. The brittle stems bend in the breeze and the heads tip out their seeds to be scattered near and far in the wind.

Kids love watching the poppies prepare their seed heads, shaking them to see if the seeds are dry enough yet to rattle and peering closely to see if if the clever poppies at the end of their lifecycle have opened up their heads.

They can then have great fun opening up the heads for themselves, scattering the seeds and even packaging them up in little paper envelopes as gifts.

Kids can certainly have enormous fun starting cool plants from sunflowers to pumpkins from seed and through these start to understand about the life cycle of a plant but the simple poppy also provides a great opportunity to capture children's wonder at the cycle of a plant from seed to new seed.

If you're looking for more posts on seeds and the lifecycle of plants do check out the links at the bottom of this post and if you've got your own posts on seeds and plants please do link them up ...

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More Lifecycle of Plants Posts