Life Science — Plants & Seeds — Unit 2, Lesson 6 of 6
📚 Grade: Kindergarten⏱️ Duration: 30–45 minutes🔬 Subject: Life Science — Plants & Seeds🧰 Kit Lesson: No
🫘 → 🌱 → 🌿 → 🌸 → 🫘
A tiny seed becomes a plant — and that plant makes new seeds. The cycle never ends!
📋 NGSS Standard: K-LS1-1 — Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.
🎯 Learning Objective
Students will investigate my Plant's Life Story, make observations during the lesson activity, and explain what they learned using evidence from the lesson.
🎓 Unit 2 Wrap-Up — Super Seeds & Perfect Plants
Congratulations — you finished all 6 lessons! Here's a look back at everything you explored together:
1
What's Inside a Seed? — Dissected beans to find the embryo, food supply, and seed coat.
2
Let's Plant! — Planted bean seeds in cups; learned what seeds need to germinate (water, warmth, soil).
3
Roots & Shoots — Observed which direction roots and shoots grow; learned roots anchor and absorb water.
4
What Do Plants Need? — Tested sunlight and water; tied back to K-LS1-1 (plants need sunlight, water, air, nutrients).
5
Parts of a Plant — Named roots, stem, leaves, flower, fruit; learned each part's job.
6
My Plant's Life Story — Sequenced the full plant life cycle; made a Life Cycle Wheel. (Today!)
📖 Culminating Project: Our Little Garden Book
Make a small 6-page booklet — one page per lesson! Each page can include a drawing, one or two facts, and a label. Staple together for a keepsake that shows everything learned this unit. Great for showing grandparents or friends what a scientist can do!
🎯 The Big Idea
A plant doesn't just grow and stop — it goes through a life cycle! A seed grows into a sprout, then into a full plant, which makes flowers, then fruit, and finally new seeds. Those new seeds grow into new plants, and the whole cycle begins again. That's why we call it a cycle — it goes around and around forever!
🔬 The Science
Every living thing has a life cycle — a series of stages it passes through from birth to making new life. For a flowering plant like a bean, the cycle has four main stages:
Seed — the beginning; contains everything the plant needs to start growing
Sprout / Seedling — the seed germinates; roots push down, a shoot pushes up
Growing Plant — leaves grow and make food from sunlight; the stem grows taller
Flower & Seeds — flowers attract pollinators; pollination leads to fruit, which contains new seeds
When the fruit ripens and falls (or is eaten!), those new seeds land in soil — and the cycle starts all over again.
💡 Key vocabulary: life cycle, seed, germination, seedling, sprout, growing plant, flower, pollination, fruit
📦 Materials
🌿 From Your Home / Garden
Bean plants from Lesson 2 (about 1 week old — for observation)
Access to a garden or yard (optional — to see plants at different stages)
Pictures of plant life stages (optional — from a magazine or printed)
🎨 For the Life Cycle Wheel Craft
Paper plate (1 per student)
Crayons or markers
Scissors ✂️
Brass fastener or tape (optional — to make a spinning wheel pointer)
📄 For the Worksheet
Printed worksheet (last pages of this lesson)
Pencil, crayons, or markers
Glue stick (if using cut-and-paste version)
🔬 Let's Get Started
Step 1 — Observe Your Bean Plant! (5 min)
Bring out the bean plants from Lesson 2. Let each child look closely at their plant. Ask: "What do you notice? What does it look like now compared to when we planted it?"
Point out any visible roots, the stem, and the first leaves (called cotyledons). Ask: "Which stage of the life cycle is your plant at right now?"
Step 2 — Tell the Life Cycle Story (5–7 min)
Walk through the four stages together using the emoji sequence on the board or a printed poster:
🫘 Seed — "Remember when we dissected the seed? It had a tiny baby plant inside!"
🌱 Sprout — "The seed drank water and warmth — then germination happened! The baby plant woke up."
🌿 Growing Plant — "Leaves grew to catch sunlight. Roots drank water. The plant got bigger!"
🌸 Flower & Seeds — "Flowers attract bees and butterflies for pollination. That makes fruit! Inside the fruit — new seeds."
Then say: "And guess what happens next? Those seeds fall to the ground and… the whole story starts AGAIN!"
💡 Pro tip: Do a slow dramatic pause before "the whole story starts AGAIN!" — kids love the reveal. You can even spin your hand in a big circle to show "cycle."
Step 3 — Make the Life Cycle Wheel (10–15 min)
Give each child a paper plate. Help them fold it into four equal sections (like a pizza).
Open it back up — now you have 4 sections marked
Label each section (or let them copy): 1 Seed, 2 Sprout, 3 Growing Plant, 4 Flower & Seeds
Draw or color each stage in its section — encourage them to look at their real bean plant for reference!
Draw arrows along the edge going clockwise (to show the cycle keeps going)
Optional: Add a brass fastener in the center with a small cardstock pointer for a spinning wheel
"Use your pointer to show me — where is YOUR plant right now?"
Step 4 — Garden Walk (optional, 5–10 min)
If weather permits, take a walk outside! Look for plants at different stages — maybe a seed pod on the ground, a sprout coming up, a plant in full bloom, or a fruit forming on a vine. "Can you find a plant in each stage of the life cycle?"
Step 5 — Complete the Worksheet (10 min)
Use the circular life cycle diagram worksheet. Students draw each stage in its section, add arrows, and complete the sentence at the bottom. Younger students can dictate their sentence.
Step 6 — Big Discussion & Wrap-Up (5 min)
Come together for the discussion questions below. Celebrate finishing all 6 lessons of Unit 2! "You are now officially a Plant Scientist. 🌿 What was your favorite experiment?"
💬 Discussion Questions
🗣️ "Why is it called a cycle and not just a line?"Because it goes around and around! When a plant makes seeds, those seeds grow into NEW plants that make MORE seeds. It never really ends — it circles back to the beginning.
🗣️ "What would happen if a plant never made seeds?"There would be no new plants! The cycle would stop. Seeds are how plants make more plants and keep going.
🗣️ "What does a seed need to start its life cycle? Can you remember from Lesson 2?"Water, warmth, and soil — those help germination happen! Then once leaves grow, the plant also needs sunlight and air.
🗣️ "Do YOU have a life cycle? Do all living things?"Yes! Humans are born, grow up, and have babies — that's a life cycle too! All living things have one — dogs, trees, butterflies, even mushrooms.
🚀 Extensions
⏱️ Fast vs. Slow: A bean completes its life cycle in about 60 days. An oak tree takes decades just to grow big enough to make acorns. Compare them on a timeline!
🦋 Other Life Cycles: Look up the butterfly life cycle — egg → caterpillar → chrysalis → butterfly. How is it similar to a plant's? How is it different?
📚 Read Aloud:"The Tiny Seed" by Eric Carle, "Jack's Garden" by Henry Cole, or "From Seed to Plant" by Gail Gibbons
🌱 Transplant Ceremony: Move your bean plants to a bigger pot or outside in the garden. Mark the date — and predict when it will flower!
📖 Garden Book: Start the Our Little Garden Book project — one page per lesson, a keepsake of the whole unit.
👩🏫 Parent/Teacher Notes
Culminating lesson: This is Lesson 6 of 6 — take a moment to look back together at all 6 experiments! Ask: "What did we learn about seeds? About roots? About what plants need?" This recap ties directly back to K-LS1-1 (plants need sunlight, water, air, and soil/nutrients).
Transplant ceremony: The bean plants from Lesson 2 should be ready to move to a bigger pot or outside. Make it special! Let each child carefully dig a hole and plant their bean with a little ceremony. Science + ritual = memory.
Life cycle as a concept: Introduce the phrase "life cycle" clearly — all living things have one. You might point to a butterfly book, a caterpillar, even your pet or a tree in the yard. The concept is huge and will come up in every science unit from here on.
Vocabulary to introduce today:
Life cycle — the series of stages a living thing passes through
Germination — when a seed starts to grow (wakes up!)
Seedling — a very young plant that just sprouted
Pollination — when pollen moves from flower to flower (bees help!)
Fruit — the part of the plant that holds seeds (tomatoes, apples, bean pods!)
Extension — fast vs. slow life cycles: A bean plant goes from seed to seed in about 60 days. A sunflower takes about 80 days. An oak tree can take 20–50 years to produce its first acorn. This is a great way to introduce the concept of variation in life cycles.
Garden Book project: Encourage families to make a small 6-page booklet — one page per lesson — as a culminating project. Each page: a drawing, one sentence, and a label. Stapled together, it becomes a keepsake science journal. Perfect for grandparents!
K-LS1-1 wrap-up: Circle back to the standard — what do plants need to survive? By now, students have observed it in multiple experiments: sunlight (Lesson 4), water (Lesson 2 & 4), air (Lesson 4), soil/nutrients (Lesson 2 & 3). Ask them to list it from memory — they'll likely get all four.
Draw each stage of the plant life cycle in its box. Add arrows to show the cycle keeps going!
↑ new cycle!
2🌱Sprout
Draw a sprout coming out of the ground
→
1🫘Seed
Draw a seed in the ground
🔄 Life Cycle
3🌿Growing Plant
Draw a plant with leaves
←
4🌸Flower & Seeds
Draw a flower with fruit/seeds
↓
Seed → Sprout → Growing Plant → Flower & Seeds → back to Seed!
✏️ Finish this sentence:
The plant life cycle is called a cycle because
🌱 My Plant Today
Look at your bean plant from Lesson 2. Which stage is it at? Circle it:
🫘 Seed 🌱 Sprout 🌿 Growing Plant 🌸 Flower & Seeds
✏️ Draw your real plant here and write (or tell) one thing you notice:
🌿 PARENT/TEACHER ANSWER KEY — Detach before giving worksheet to students
✅ Correct Life Cycle Order
The four stages should appear in this clockwise order on the wheel:
🫘 Seed — A seed contains a tiny embryo plant and stored food, protected by a seed coat.
🌱 Sprout (Seedling) — With water and warmth, the seed germinates: roots push down, a shoot pushes up, and the first leaves emerge (cotyledons).
🌿 Growing Plant — The plant grows true leaves, which capture sunlight for photosynthesis. The stem grows taller; roots grow deeper.
🌸 Flower & Seeds — Flowers attract pollinators (bees, butterflies). After pollination, fruit develops. Inside the fruit are new seeds — and the cycle begins again!
Key point: Arrows should go clockwise from Seed → Sprout → Growing Plant → Flower & Seeds → back to Seed.
✅ Sentence Completion — Accepted Answers
Sample correct responses for: "The plant life cycle is called a cycle because ___"
"…it goes around and around and never stops."
"…the seeds make new plants that make more seeds."
"…it keeps going in a circle, back to the beginning."
"…it never has an ending — it just starts over!"
✅ "My Plant Today" — What to Expect
A bean planted in Lesson 2 (~7 days ago) should be at the Sprout / Seedling stage.
Students may see the stem emerging, the cotyledons (first two thick leaves), and possibly the beginning of true leaves.
Roots are usually not visible unless planted in a clear cup against the glass.
Praise all observations — color, height, texture, direction of growth. There's no wrong answer for the observation drawing.
✅ Learning Objective — What Success Looks Like
Child can name and sequence all four stages of the plant life cycle in order.
Child can explain why it's a "cycle" (it goes around; seeds become plants that make more seeds).
Child can identify what stage their own bean plant is at.
Child can connect back to K-LS1-1: plants need sunlight, water, air, and soil/nutrients to survive.
🌟 Bonus: Discussion Question Answers
"Why a cycle, not a line?" — Seeds → plants → more seeds. It circles back. A line has an end; a cycle doesn't.
"What if no seeds were made?" — No new plants! The species would disappear. Seeds are survival.
"What does a seed need to start?" — Water, warmth, soil. Then light + air for the growing plant.
"Do you have a life cycle?" — Yes! Born → grow → have children → the next generation begins.
