What Preschoolers will Learn:

- The parts of a plant - roots, stem, and leaves

- That plants can grow from unlikely sources such as potatoes

- That plants need water, sun and eventually dirt to grow

- That plants need time to grow

- You may even get your child interested in eating sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are full of vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, beta carotene and thiamine and low in calories, sodium and refined sugars.

What you Need to Grow a Sweet Potato Plant:

- A glass jar

- A sweet potato

- Toothpicks

- Water

- A pot

- Soil for growing vegetables

- A watering can

What to do to Grow a Sweet Potato Plant:

Step one: A grown-up should stick the toothpicks into the potato so the toothpicks can rest on the rim of the jar. The toothpicks should hold the sweet potato a few inches off the bottom of the jar. You should use three or four toothpicks per sweet potato.

Step two: Have your preschooler fill the jar with water so the bottom of the potato is submerged in the water.

Step three: Have your preschooler put the jar in a sunny place - a window sill is probably a great spot!

Step four: Remind your preschooler to check the jar every day. Have them add water with their special watering can so the water stays level. Within a few days, you should start seeing fuzzy sprouts on the bottom of the potato. They'll look like whiskers or fur. These are the beginnings of roots. Your sweet potato is growing! Within about a week, small leaves should sprout out of the top. Soon after that, your sweet potato plant will grow vines. Have your preschooler keep adding water to the jar so the potato stays wet.

Step five: After about two or three weeks, when your sweet potato has really gotten going, help your preschooler transplant the potato into the pot. Carefully remove the potato from the jar and move it into a pot that's big enough to completely bury the potato. Have your preschooler cover the potato with dirt, trying to keep the leaves out of the dirt (though it's not a huge deal if a few of them get covered up). Teach your preschooler how to gently pat the dirt around the potato.

Step six: Remind your preschooler to keep watering your sweet potato plant, and it will keep growing. Now you have your own sweet potato plant!

Suggestions:

- If you want your sweet potato to sprout fast, use a potato that has already sprouted

- Make sure you've submerged the bottom part of the potato (the pointed part) for best results

- You may have better luck if you change the water weekly - an adult should do this, not your preschooler.

Variation:

Use an avocado pit rather than a potato. Follow the same instructions and soon you'll have an avocado plant rather than a sweet potato plant.

Hi! I'm Theresa Halvorsen, the preschool science and nature writer for Preschoolrock.com. I have twin boys and am blown away by their fascination with preschool science and how the world works around them. I am always looking for fun and simple science activities so preschoolers can learn about science and the natural world. Please contact me with any suggestions, ideas or questions you have about this site.

Helpful Tips for Parents

• Use correct scientific vocabulary from the start: observe, predict, experiment, hypothesis, result, evidence. Children absorb vocabulary in context without explicit teaching.

• Outdoor science (nature observation, weather tracking, garden study) is as rigorous as lab science and has the added benefit of physical activity and environmental connection.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are commercial science kits appropriate for preschoolers?

Commercial science kits designed for ages 4+ can be engaging starting points. Look for kits that use simple, safe materials and produce visually dramatic results (crystal growing kits, volcano kits, solar system model kits). Avoid kits with very small parts, complex safety requirements, or expected outcomes that are frustrating when not achieved. The best kits are those that leave children wanting to experiment further beyond the kit's instructions — look for kits with extension activities built in.

Related reading: See also our garden science guide and our weather science for more ideas on this topic.

🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 😌 Patience & Delayed Gratification — Experiments with delayed results — growing plants, watching crystals form, tracking weather — teach children to wait for outcomes rather than needing immediate feedback, a skill that predicts academic and life success.
• 🔄 Flexible Thinking — When an experiment produces an unexpected result, children practice adapting their thinking — a form of cognitive flexibility that makes them more resilient learners across all subjects.
• ⚖️ Cause & Effect Understanding — Seeing that one action reliably produces a specific result builds the logical framework children use in mathematics, reading (one event causes another in stories), and everyday reasoning.
• 💬 Science Vocabulary — Science introduces children to precise vocabulary — observe, predict, hypothesis, dissolve, absorb, transparent — that dramatically expands language range and supports the academic vocabulary children need in school.

You may want to interest your preschooler in gardening, but not have a garden, or have no idea how to get started with preschool gardening. But it's easy to take what you have at home, like a sweet potato, and grow an entire sweet potato plant out of it.