Today we finished our Vv Vegetable unit. Well, according to my teacher's manual we finished it. But remember, we have a nice little garden growing in our back yard, so the fun's not over yet! (Yes, I can definitely feel a huge proud grin on my face right now!)
We read in one of our books that a tiny plant can be found in every seed. We all wanted to see what this tiny plant looked like, so we soaked several lima bean seeds and took them apart to see what we could find.
Here's Hannah with our soaked beans.
Millie helped peel the seed coat off of one of the beans.
The seed coat peeled right off, and the two cotyledons separated easily. 
We found our tiny plant nestled safely between the two cotyledons!
We cooked some of the squash and zucchini from our garden one night. As I was slicing the veggies, I took one of the seeds and asked the girls if they remembered what was inside of it. Hannah said, "You mean there's even a baby plant inside of that little bitty seed?!" What a priceless moment! We talked about what a marvelous creator God is to be able to form a baby plant in even the smallest of seeds.
In one of our other books, we read that seeds only need water and sunlight to grow. I thought they had to have nutrients from the soil, as well; so we put some popcorn kernels in a plastic baggie with a moist paper towel to see what happened. Turns out that author knew exactly what he was talking about! Go figure!
Our special words to remember this week were "God gives me all that I need."
We looked at Psalm 104:14: "He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate—bringing forth food from the earth." We talked about different ways God gives us what we need physically. He has created healthy food for us to eat so our bodies can stay strong. He has created the land, the sun, and the rain so that when we put seeds in the ground, they grow and bear fruit for us. We also discussed that God gives us what we need spiritually, too; but just like a gardener has to spend time tending to his crops in order for them to bear fruit, we need to spend time with God in order to bear spiritual fruit in our lives.
This unit was almost effortless since we've already been focusing so much on our garden lately. Scripture has a lot to say about sowing and reaping, and I'm thankful the girls are having an opportunity to learn about it in the physical realm so they can transfer their knowledge to the spiritual realm as they get older. Maybe instead of fishers of men, they'll be pickers of people!
