If you follow my other blog, you saw the post on starting seeds. I truly hope you didn’t plant your seeds yet…all by yourself. Because as homesteaders and homeschoolers everything that we do is an educational opportunity for our children and planting seeds is no exception. So today I want to share what you can learn from a seed packet.

Take a field trip this week (as soon as you’re done reading this would be the best time before you forget or talk yourself out of it) to a place that sells cheap seed packets. You know, the three for a dollar variety. Let the kids pick out a bunch of packets to try. Then take them home and…

Study the label. Does it give the weight of the seeds or the count? Verify it. Using a Weight Watchers or postal scale, weigh the seeds. Count the seeds. If 25 seeds weigh X grams, how much would 100 seeds weigh? Come up with all kinds of problems like this. Remember what we did with the pumpkin seeds? A lot of those exercises apply here.

Look up how many seeds of a particular vegetable you need for a row the size of your garden rows. The Gurney’s catalog you used for Lessons from the Seed Catalog gives some of this information. (If you haven’t gotten your copy of Lessons from the Seed Catalog yet, what are you waiting for? You are missing out on a ton of fun learning activities to do with your children.)You can check other seed catalogs, Carla Emery’s Encyclopedia of Country Living, or you can just figure it out for yourself by checking how far apart they need to be spaced. Now, have your child figure out how many seed packets he would need to buy to plant a row in your garden. He will have to know the dimensions of your garden for this. Two rows, three rows. What about the next vegetable? And the next?

Try sprouting some of the seeds. Discuss sprouting, what the seeds need, the purpose of the dark …and the light. Are these sprouts edible? Research what seeds produce delicious, safe-to-eat sprouts and what seeds produce toxic sprouts.

Have your child write her own description and planting instructions for the back of the packets.

Don’t throw those seeds away. Grow them. Start the seeds in egg cartons like we did some last year and get them ready to go outdoors.Give each of your children an area of the garden and let them learn to take care of it all on their own.

This fun isn’t just for vegetables, either. Go for the flower beds, too. With the flowers you can get into where to plant according to the height of the flowers. Organize your seed packets according to height of plant. Organize by color. Sketch your flower bed (like those illustrations you see in gardening books) and color it. Better yet, make it a watercolor.

Skip next to the packets of herb seeds. Did the children pick out culinary herbs or medicinal herbs. Perhaps they picked dual-purpose like garlic. Research the medicinal properties of the herbs they chose.

As homesteading homeschoolers we have so many educational opportunities right at our fingertips. What you can learn from a seed packet is just the beginning. Okay, what else can you come up with? Share your ideas with me, please.

Blessings,