Home Science Experiment - Germinating Bean Seeds

Here's a little home science experiment that we did during the school holidays. Its a very simple but wonderful and exciting activity for young kids.

Here's what you need to germinate bean seeds:

Green Bean Seeds

Cotton Wool

Container

Thats all! First you have to soak the green bean seeds. Then, all you have to do is place damp cotton wool into a container, sprinkle the green bean seeds on the cotton wool and place the container in a place with sunlight. Water your bean seeds everyday and watch it grow. Its amazing.

Growing bean seeds is a very simple activity to do with young kids. You don't need to have a lot of time to do it. All you need is 5 minutes each day to water the beans. Even the initial activity of setting it up takes just 5 minutes and young kids can do it themselves easily. Just make sure they don't eat the beans!

The kids love to water their "plants" and watch it grow overnight. Its also the best way to teach them about living things and plants and how plants need water and sunlight to grow.

At first I didn't have green beans so I got the kids to remove the seeds from my long beans. The enjoyed peeling the seeds from the long beans but they didn't work. So remember, only dried green beans. In the pictures featured below, the long bean seeds are the darker coloured ones. As you can see, they didn't grow at all.

Below, is our step by step or rather day to day pictures of our bean seeds germination process.