Spring has finally, fully arrived here in Maine. Our flowers are in full bloom and this weekend we’re putting together garden boxes for growing vegetables. Planting flowers and vegetables is a great way to spark kids’ curiosity and to develop some hands-on learning experiences. If you can’t plant flowers or vegetables with kids, but want to share the science behind what makes plants grow, take a look at the following video lessons from SciShow Kids. 

How Plant Seed Travel the World explains how plants grow in the wild and spread naturally. 

Flowers and Their Pollinators is a good video that covers a topic that has come up a lot in my house recently, thanks in part to a Nat Geo Kids book about bees. That topic is the role of insects and birds in helping plants grow.

Why Daffodils Grow in the Same Place Every Year covers another topic that comes up in our house. That topic being, “why do we have so many daffodils?”

Applications for Education

I like these kind of videos for two reasons. First, they’re short enough to be turned into video lessons with a tool like EDpuzzle. Second, they provide kids with a little bit of information that they can then take with them as they explore the natural world around them. For example, I love taking my kids on walks in the woods and parks around us where they can make connections between what they’ve learned or been told and what they actually see outside.