Play · for young children

Seed Growth

Updated 2026-07-31 · Concept: growth needs time, and time can be interrupted

You plant one seed. Every year, each seed you have makes one more seed. You cannot eat them yet: you have to wait.

Years waited 0

Seeds you have

1 seed

Right now you have one seed. Press Wait one more year and see what happens.

For the grown-up: doubling every year is deliberately unrealistic for a plant and deliberately memorable. The transferable idea is that almost all of the change arrives at the end, and only if nobody interrupts it, which is why the "dig it up" button exists and why it is the part children remember. Compound interest, in the version a five-year-old can hold.

And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.

Mark 4:26-29

KJV. Jesus is describing the kingdom of God, not an investment strategy: a farmer scatters seed, goes to bed, and the growing happens without him. The transferable observation is the one children can hold: some good things grow while you are not watching, but only if you leave them in the ground.

Next: Three Jars → · the grown-up version of this tool · the Seedlings track (ages 5 to 10)

The buttons need JavaScript. On paper it works just as well: start with one seed and double it each year: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256. Ask the child which single year added the most seeds. It is always the last one, and the answer surprises adults too. Then ask what happens if you dig the seeds up in year 3 and eat them: you are back to one seed, and the other 255 that the series reaches by year eight never arrive.