Thursday, December 18, 2014

Growing Candy Canes

Don’t you just love, and hate, browsing through Pinterest and find an idea you just have to do even if time is limited?  That’s what happened this week.
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123Homeschool4me has shared print outs for growing candy canes.  I love magical activities like this and knew we had to try it even though we had four days left of school before Christmas break.
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The seed packet is fantastic in its detail.  Directions of how to plant, with what materials to how long it will take to germinate.  I really appreciated that it looks like a seed packet.
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The only change I made was which candy I used as the seed.  That was because being short in time I couldn’t run around to find the red mint candy.  The first store I visited had these Christmas candy corn and candy canes to match in colour – perfect!
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On Tuesday, I had a smaller group at circle time which worked well for this activity.  I introduced the idea of candy canes growing.  Has anyone ever heard of growing candy canes?  Have they seen a candy cane seed before? 
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After showing them the package of seeds and what the seeds look like, we filled our planting pot with North Pole Potting Snow.  Each child received a seed to plant in the pot. 
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We left the North Pole fertilizer for children that would be attending an evening session that night.  But we ended up being busy doing other activities and forgot.
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The seeds didn’t need it.  We were thrilled to find that they had sprouted overnight. There were lots of candy canes at all different heights.
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At the end of this morning, as the children were leaving, I reminded them of what the seeds looked like then they harvested a candy cane.  The roots were long and they had to brush off the snow.
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                  The best part was the Merry Christmas hugs. 
       Be sure to visit 123Homeschool4me to access the printables.