New growth in DuPage Early Learning: bean plants!

Our DuPage Center’s Home-Based Early Learning programs are learning about planting! Carmen Toranzo, a Parent Child Educator in the program, has been working with her families on an experiment to observe the Life Cycle of the Bean Plant.

She delivered a package to each family with the materials needed: Ziploc bags with cotton to get the beans started, the beans to grow into plants, and a graphic that shows the different stages of the growth of the bean seed.

Parents and children are observing and documenting the different stages of the life cycle, taking pictures of their beans at each stage, and then cutting them out and gluing them together in the correct sequence as they grow.

“Parents and children have been really excited about this activity,” shares Carmen.

Children are learning the different parts of the seeds, and the name of the different stages of growth of a plant: seed, germination, roots, sprout, seeding, plant, bean pod.

Within a couple days, the seeds were already sprouting. By Day 5, the bean plants were ready to transplant to clay pots filled with soil – also provided by the Home-Based Early Learning program. Parents and children decorated the flower pot together, and then planted the seed.

One of our young gardeners, Eduardo, shared, “Me voy a quedar mirandola todo el dia para ver como se e crecen sus hojitas y como se levanta!” (“I will stay right here all day to watch how the leaves come out and see how it keeps growing!”)

Thank you to Eliel, Eduardo, and their mom, Patricia, as well as Emily and her mom Silvia for sharing their plants’ progress!