Activity: Seed & Spoon Race

We can all remember doing an egg and spoon race as a child where we frantically ran back and forth trying  not to let our delicate egg topple to the floor. 

In a garden twist to this classic game, the egg is replaced with seeds. 

Materials

• Spoons
• Bowls
• Seeds [Note: Choose larger seeds, such as sunflower, pumpkin, or bean seeds, so that they are easier to clean up]

Activity

• Divide the class into teams.
• Give each team a spoon and one bowl filled with seeds.
• Have the teams line up on one side of the room.
• Place an empty bowl across the room from each team.
• Instruct one player from each team to scoop a spoonful of seeds and carefully run/walk across the room to dump them into his/her team's empty bowl.  If the student drops any seeds, he/she has to start over.
• After the team member puts the seeds in the bowl, he/she returns to the team and hands the spoon to the next player.
• The first team to complete the relay race with the most seeds in their bowl wins.

Alternative

• Instead of seeing who can dump the most seeds into his/her team's bowl, have students take a spoonful of seeds and, in a more traditional egg/spoon race fashion, transfer the seeds between teammates.  Each player must run/walk to one side of the room and back and then transfer the seeds to the next player.  The team that completes the relay race the fastest with the most seeds wins.