Customer Reviews

How a Seed Grows (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 1)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book should have been more appropriately titled HOW TO WATCH A SEED GROW. Instead of discussing the various stages of development and explaining what happens, the book is basically an extended science project explaining how students can watch a seed grow into a plant. The book talks about the different stages, but only discusses what the planted beans should look like in those stages, not really explaining what is happening or why. Nevertheless, the book does outline a good science project for younger children, but isn't much as a book to read to kids.

We enjoy the "Let's - Read - & - Find - Out" series of books. This one is a good addition, explaining seeds on my five year old son's level of understanding . Something that many adult writers of childrens' science books sometimes aren't very good at getting across. It is in my child's library at school.

The books in this series are informative and interesting for their target audiences. The illustrations are well done and add to understanding the process being described. They make it easier to follow for kids.

This is one very good science book. If you would like to do a seed project then this is a good guide to lots of young peoples questions about plants. It has colorful illustrations about what is happening with your project. It is written in detail, but not like a boring high school science textbook that goes on, and on, and on about one thing, giving every detail that there is. So what I'm trying to say is that this is a good book.

If you are looking for a simple "experiment" for the budding scientist in your home, this is an excellent book. As you read this with your young child, he/ she will certainly be inspired to do what the kids in the book are doing; planting a bean seed and watching it grow.

As you read along with the story and follow-up with actually doing the experiment your child becomes part of the story, waiting and watching as his (or her) own seeds develop. Children learn the essential elements of growing seeds. Once you have successfully grown your first bean plants, there is a page at the rear of the book that guides you through additional "experiment" ideas to go even deeper.

This book, because it is on the Stage 1 level, is a bit less informative than the other Let's Read and Find Out Science books that we already have in our growing collection which are primarily Stage 2, but certainly worthwhile in that it guides parent and child through a very simple Science project.

Basic concepts covered in this book in addition to the seed growing are:

1. Counting (stage 1 is geered toward preschool to early kindergarten)
2. Patience (in that you must wait days to see things begin to happen)
3. The ability to follow instructions (the steps to perform the experiments)

My daughter does like this book quite a bit. I was looking for a book we could just read at nighttime vs a book that included a science project of growing bean seeds.

She did learn from this book and does request it even without our bean seeds, so it was worth it.

WE planted a vegetable garden and this was a great complement to doing the gardening and explaining how thing grow.

My four year old grandson loves this book. We have been growing plants from seed on his windowsill and can't wait to try the experiment in this book.

What this book is NOT, to be clear, is a good read-aloud. It's tedious if used that way.

What it *is* is a good, step-by-step instruction of a basic science project for little ones. If you use it that way, reading every step as you go through it and not before, it's wonderful.

I find the reading age suggested on this book (3-6) to be a little young. Try 6-8 instead.

We've gotten this book out at least a dozen times from the library, so I finally just bought a copy.

We live in Phoenix, so we plant our gardens 3 times a year. Everybody gets their own garden with their own seeds. My youngest makes sure we all have a windchime in our garden, as well.

And we always go through this book the week we plant -- even though my kids know the steps, the book makes it so interesting for them to follow along. The illustrations are really clear. For homeschoolers, this makes a nice tie-in for journaling -- you could even do measuring and charting -- and of course, what you grow, you can enjoy! We love this one and the "Magic School Bus" planting seeds books.

The illustrations and text are not babyish -- this book is great.

I bought this for my 2 yr old son thinking it would just be a story. I was a little thrown when I realized it was more of an instruction book for planting seeds (second half). However, that hasn't stopped the book from being one of my son's favorites, and we're even doing the growing project in the book. He's really excited about it, and since science is *doing* as well as reading, I think it's a good blend/introduction.