Once there was a little seed.  A tomato seed to be exact.  His name was Tommy the tomato seed.  Tommy was very comfortable living in the ground, sleeping actually, in a state called DORMANCY.  He was waiting for just the right mixture of moisture, temperature, and oxygen to wake up.

One fateful day it began to rain.  Tommy noticed that the soil around him was warming up.  He thought, I should GERMINATE!  His hard outer shell softened and he began to grow roots, the first of which is called the RADICLE.

Once Tommy's root foundation seemed safe and solid, he decided it was time to check out the world above ground.  He pushed his SHOOT up toward the light of day.  All this growth was making him hungry so he opened his first leaves, called COTYLEDONS, so he could begin PHOTOSYNTHESIS.

Tommy wasn't a little seed anymore!  He was a SEEDLING with true leaves and a stem.  As time went by he grew more and more leaves and got taller

One day Tommy begins to grow beautiful flowers.  Each flower contains STAMENS and a PISTIL that contains an OVULE that when POLLINATED develops seeds. 

As the seeds mature, they are surrounded by small green fleshy berries called tomatoes!  As the tomatoes RIPEN, they get bigger and turn red. 

Each tomato contains more seeds, just like Tommy!  Now these seeds can be DISPERSED and grow themselves.  Tommy the tomato seed has completed his LIFE CYCLE, growing from a small seed into a beautiful tomato plant.

Steps of the Life Cycle of a tomato plant:

Seed

Germination

Seedling

Growth

Flowering

Fruiting

Seed dispersal

Senescence

GLOSSARY

Cotyledon - an embryonic leaf in seed-bearing plants, one or more of which are the first leaves to appear from a germinating seed.

Dormancy - natural mechanism that prevents seeds from germinating at inappropriate times, ensuring that seedlings emerge when conditions are optimal for survival, such as adequate water, temperature, oxygen, and light

Germinate - begin to grow and put out shoots after a period of dormancy

Life Cycle - the stages from seed germination to maturity, reproduction, and the production of new seeds

Ovule - the part of the ovary of seed plants that contains the female germ cell and after fertilization becomes the seed

Photosynthesis - the process by which green plants and some other organisms use sunlight to synthesize nutrients from carbon dioxide and water.