Seeds

Our recent Nature Study project happened quite by accident. I tossed some Red Bud seeds into a recycled pudding cup with some soil and in just a few days we had some little green shoots peeping through the soil. It quickly shot up nice and tall and I realized we have an in-house subject for Nature Study.
I rummaged around and found some other small containers and we planted seeds from a pine, oak, and an apple (we already have a baby lemon tree grown from seed.) I arranged them on our school table and then added some books about seeds. It is nice to have something living and growing right before your very eyes. We are hoping that our other seeds will sprout, but until then we have our Red Bud and Lemon to observe. Here is one of our nature journal sketches of the young Red Bud's.

UPDATE: 5-3-10 We were so surprised at how quickly this "red bud" was shooting up. As it continued to grow we realized something was amiss. Not only was it growing unusually fast, but the leaves did not look like the leaves of a red bud. So, we decided to wait and watch. Eventually it budded and bloomed....a pale yellow composite flower! So, we are not sure what happened to our red bud seeds, and where did these come from? One of our pines sprouted and then died, and we still have the lemon tree and an apple tree.