100th Day of School Garden

What You Need:

• 10 different kinds of flower seed packets
• Shovel
• Potting soil
• Long (30 inch) inexpensive plastic planter, or outdoors area for planting
• Paper
• Pencil

What You Do:

1. Tell your child that for the 100th day of school, he will count out 100 flower seeds, plant them, and chart their growth for 100 days!
2. Open each seed packet, but keep the seeds near the packets (to remember which kind they are). Count 10 seeds from each packet. Remind your child that 10 x 10 equals 100; he has counted 100 flower seeds!
3. Help your child use potting soil to plant seeds inside the planter. Or, you can plant seeds in an outside area. Follow the planting directions on the seed packets for each kind of flower. You may have to plant 10 seeds or less of each flower, depending on how much space you're working with. If you plant at least 1 seed of each flower, your child can chart and compare 10 different kinds of flowers. Be sure to put a label by each kind of flower seed planted.
4. Help your child create a chart with 10 columns across (named for each kind of flower seed planted), and 100 rows going down, numbered 1 to 100. You’ll need to continue the rows on the back of the paper and a 2nd sheet. The rows are for 100 days of observing each kind of seed’s growth.
5. For the first few days he’ll write “no growth yet” on the chart. Anywhere between day 7 and day 20, and depending on what flowers were planted, he can record when a green bud becomes visible! Then he can begin recording plant height as the flowers continue to grow. Finally, he'll be able to make note of when the flower blooms make an appearance (around day 40 or higher, depending on the flower).

Optional for plastic planter: Your child may want to decorate it with 100 flower stickers!