Your kids love mazes, but they’ve never seen something as incredibly COOL as this maze potato! This potato maze will blow kids away as they watch potatoes grow, learn about plants and their need to head towards the light. This plant activity for kids is perfect for spring or summer learning. All you need to try stem activities are a few items you probabaly have around the house to try this plant experiments for kids from preschool, kindergarten, pre-k, first grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd graders too!
Maze Potato
Most children know that plants require planting materials, seed, water, and sunlight. They observe a bean or pea sprout as a typical plant activity for kindergarten. It may surprise students to learn the lengths a plant will go to as they head towards the light. This EPIC potato maze is truly a cool plant activity for kids. As preschoolers, kindergartners, grade 1, grade 2, and grade 3 students try this plant experiment for kids they will create a maze from recycled materials for their potato to navigate. This is a fun Earth Day Science project, goes great with watching the Disney movie Wall-e, or use it in your plant science lesson at home, in the classroom, or a local coop. This also makes a really fun summer stem activity for stem camp!
Potato Maze
So what do you need to try this potato activity for kids? Just a couple simple materials you probably have laying around your house!
- box
- scissors
- masking tape
- sprouting potato
- moist soil
- small flower pot or container
Plant experiments for kids
Basically you get to make a maze for the vegetable to navigate. So open up the side of a large box and start adding obstacles. You can make shelves with 3-4″ holes to get to the next level. you can make different gaps a la Mario games, or anything else you can think of. This is why this is such a great STEM (science, teachnology, engineering, and math) activity.
We used recycled Amazon boxes for the main frame and cut out flaps from other boxes. Then we taped on the ledges we made. Finally, we added some purple duct tape for both style and function.
Just make sure there is a path the plant can take to get from the pot at the bottom to the out of the box towards the sunlight. DOn’t forget to make a door or put the lid back!
Plant Experiments for Kids
Put the potato in some moist soil in a small pot. Cover with more soil. Set the potato in the bottom level of your maze.
HINT: If you use a potato that already has “eyes” or small growths it will go quicker =) Just check the bottom of your potato bag, I bet you already have one!
Plant Activities for Kindergarten
Set the potato where light will shine through the top and leave it a few days.
STEM Activities
Go ahead and take a peak if you want, just dont’ forget to close the “door”. Give it a little water if the soil is dry. You want the soil moist, but not wet or the potato will rot. So water every couple of days or so with just a light sprinkling.
Once the potato gets some leaves it will start to go more quickly. Keep the maze closed with the end of the maze in the sun.
See how the potato is starting to move towards the light source.
The amazing potato will keep working dilligently to get up to the sunlight that it needs to grow.
The experiment can vary from a week or longer depending on the complexity of your maze, if it had eyes yet, the temperature, quality of soil, and regular waterings. But don’t worry, it will keep growing, be patient!
You can see our potato has navigated several turns and twists. The upper leaves look green as they are getting sunlight whereas the lower ones that are in the dark now (as the rest of the plant is covering the little sunlight it was getting) are starting to look limp and pale.
Potato Science Experiment
This potato science experiment demonstrates the principle of tropism which explains how plants react to outside stimulus. This can cause plants to send deeper roots to find water, grow at a slant to get to sunlight, change colors based on the soil acidity (think hydrangeas), or stretch to find light
Learn about amazing plants for kids iwith this intersting and fun botany lesson for kids! From fascinating facts about plants for kids, plant worksheets, hands-on plant activities, creative plant experiments, and even tests with answer keys to test what your child has learned, you will love this fun printable science lesson for kids! Use this plant lesson with first grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, and 8th graders too.
 >>>> Get our plant lesson here <<<<<
Plant Activities for Kindergarten
- Potato Maze – Summer STEM Activity for Kids
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Flower Printables
- Free Printable Parts of a Plant Flipbook
- Life Cycle of a Sunflower Worksheet Pack
- LOTS of Gardening with Kids tips and information
- Plant Life Cycle Worksheets and Observation Book
- Cute, printable Name flower craft
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- Life Cycle of a Plant Worksheet Pack
- Silly Egg Head Spring Activities for Kids
- Steps to Planting a Seed Worksheet
- Grass Craft for Kids
Flower Crafts
- Stunning Lacing Flower Craft
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- Super cute Printable Name Flower Craft
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- Handprint Spring flower art projects
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Flower Science Experiments
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- Seeds and Plants Unit filled with hands-on Plant Activities for Kindergarten
- EASY Color Changing Flowers experiment for kids
Flower Printables
Looking for some fun, educational spring theme ideas to make learning fun this April and May? Check out these fun resources:
- Cute, free printable Flower Shape Flower Craft for kids
- Flower Rhyming Worksheet
- FREE Printable Flower Scavenger Hunt
- Sunflower Printable ABC Puzzles
- Flower Beginning Sounds Activity
- Flower Kindergarten Sight Words Maze Worksheets
- Pretty Flower Name Worksheet for Kindergarten
- F is for Flower Handprint Craft
- Practice making shapes with these flower playdough mats
- Spring Flower Counting Games for Preschoolers
- Flower Letter Matching Printable
- Digraph Activity Build-a-Flower
- Planting Carrot cvc activities for kindergarten
- Flower Sight Word Maze Worksheets to practice reading fluency
- Seeds Free Addition Games – fun math activity for kindergarten age kids
- Letter Find Flower Worksheets
- Flower Worksheets for Preschoolers to practice a variety of skills
Summer Fun
Looking for more outdoor activities for kids and things to do in the summer? Your toddler, preschool, pre k, kindergarten, and elementary age kids will love these fun ideas to keep them busy all summer long:
- Marshmallow Shooters – go over 30 feet!
- Lemon Volcano is a fun Summer Experiment for kids of all ages
- 2 ingredient Easy Slime Recipe
- Super Simple Sand Slime
- Simple Summer Science Sunscreen Experiment
- How to Make a Lava Lamp – it’s super EASY!
- Scented, Watermelon Playdough Recipe for summer
- Kids will no nuts over this simple Pop Rock Experiment
- Mind-Blowing MAGNETIC Slime
- Leak Proof Bag – Amazing Science Experiment with Everyday Materials
- Mind-Blowing Magnetic Slime for Kids
- Easy Button Crafts for Kids
- Handprint Strawberry Craft for Summer
- Grow Your Own Crystals
- Water Balloon Experiment – exploring densit with an EPIC summer activity for kids
- Amazing Bubble Painting
- Sand Volcano Summer Science
- Mind Blowing Color Changing Playdough
Summer Activities for Kids
- Egg Shell DIY Chia Pet Craft – Silly Spring / Summer Activities for Kids
- Grass Head Craft for Kids
- EASY Stained Glass Pasta Art for Kids
- Simple Flower Mason Jar Lid Crafts
- Free Beach Worksheets for Kids
- Chromatography Butterflies – EASY Butterfly Craft for Kids
- Silly Bandaid Art Craft for kids
- Blow GIANT bubbles with this Homemade Bubble Solution
- Outrageously FUN Bubble Painting
- Bleeding Tissue Paper Fireworks Craft
- Beautiful Flower Suncatcher Craft
- 30 Fun June Crafts for Kids
- Kids will be amazed at the l-o-n-g colorful bubble snakes they can make with this easy activity
- Must try Lego Zipline
- Exploding Watermelon Science Experiment
- Homemade Chalk Recipe
- 75+ FUN Scavenger Hunts for Kids
- Find activities by month with our June Crafts for kids or our June Activities for Kids!
- 20+ Printable Roadtrip Games
Fun Summer Activities for Kids
- Ice Cream Edible Playdough
- Blood for Kids – Activity to learn about the Human Body
- Watermelon Playdough
- Strawberry No Cook Jello Playdough Recipe for Summer
- Whip up a batch of Kool Aid Playdough – it smells amazing!
- EASY, Vibrant Sidewalk Chalk Paint for Kids
- I Spy DIY Bottles are quick, easy and FUN!
- Amazing Tin Foil Art Project for Kids of all Ages
- Vinegar and Baking Soda Rocket Science Experiment for Kids
- EPIC Mentos and Soda Experiment
- Summer Bucket List Printable with Ice Cream Theme
- How to Make Ice Cream in a Bag
- Ice Cream Playdough Patterns
- Head to the zoo with this FREE Zoo Scavenger Hunt – lots of choices for all ages!
- Make your favorite animal with one of these 100 animal crafts
- Try one of these fun Animal I Spy Printables
- Epic Squirt Gun Painting
- 10+ Pasta Flower Crafts for Kids
- Play with your food using this goldfish counting activity
- After seeing the frogs at the pond, grab this free life cycle of a frog worksheet
- Avoid the summer learning loss by practicing math with these crack the code worksheets
- First Day of Summer Craft
- Create this gorgeous stained glass art for kids
- 107 Epic Summer Activities for Kids
Responses
I love all of your Ideas!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks =)
I am very keen to attempt the potato maze experiment but I am unsure what you mean about keeping the door closed (you don’t have any photos of this. Can you expand for me please?
Basically you need to keep the maze in the dark so the only light comes in from the top. Depending on your set-up you may have a door or a lid you taped on. So don’t peak at what is happening and forget to close it back up =)
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