The Great Bean Race

Ah, sometimes a bit of competition is all you need to get a homeschool project to take off in the mind of a child.

I've mentioned we're studying plants this week. Well an experiment, we've decided to grow pinto beans, because they are what I had in the pantry. To allow the children to see how the plant grows, we used half-pint glass jelly jars and paper towels as a growing medium. This allows us to observe what usually happens underground. Each child received 3 beans and I nearly lost all the patience I was gifted watching the children put their beans between the glass and the jar.

(As a hint, wet the paper towel after you insert it into the jar and then add the beans. The wet paper towel sticks to the jar and keeps the beans from falling to the bottom. Much less stressful and I wish I'd realized this myself first.)
 
Beans are awesome for impatient 4 and 2 year olds, because they grow so fast. The beans began to sprout within two days and growing about an inch or two each day. The children have been competing with each other as to who's beans are growing the fastest. At this point, Bun has the tallest, but Bear has two growing out the jar.

Who's bean jar would you declare the winner?

I'm thinking we're going to put these beans into the children's flower garden once we finish this unit. I wonder if we'll end up with any beans from this?