DIY Homeschooler

Seed-Babies by Margaret Warner Morley is a rich children’s classic published in the late 1800s that tells the story of how seeds grow.

Told in story form, Jack and his brother “Ko,” short for Nicholas, investigate the world of seeds with the occasional help from their father. They get the “inside” view from the plant itself — reminiscent as the book mentions of Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood.

Jack picked up a bean to replant it, and what do you think had happened? Something had, for it did not look as it did when he first put it in the ground.

It had turned green to begin with. Jack had planted white beans.

He knew they were white all through, for he had bitten a good many in two to see how they looked inside. And now the coat on the outside, that stuck so tightly at first, had peeled half off, and the bean was green!

Something more had happened, — a little white stem had come out of the bean and gone into the ground.

In this same conversational way the story progresses through:

• Beans.
• Sweet peas.
• Peanuts.
• Melons.
• Nuts.
• Apple seeds.
• Clover.
• Bees.
• Frogs.
• Bird eggs.

At the beginning of the book, the author suggests having the seeds mentioned above handy to look at as the book is read.

There are 16 sections (or chapters). By covering one chapter every two weeks, you will have plenty of lessons for a complete year for a younger child.

Free eBook

• Read online
• PDF
• EPUB (convert to Kindle)
• Audio (LibriVox)

Suggestions

Have your students do one or more of the following:

• Provide an oral or written (depending on age) narration of each chapter.
• Read Jack and the Beanstalk as a fun tie-in.
• There are many illustrations. Choose one to copy for each section. Drawing and Writing Paper will work well for this.
• As the author suggests, have on hand as many of the seeds covered as possible. Experiment as you go along.
  • Do you see the parts of the seed mentioned in the text?
  • Can you split the green seed into two halves like Jack did?
• Visit the plant section of our free nature studies for more seed ideas!

---

Additional Resources

Little Wanderers
By the same author, this one tells how the seeds disperse.