…and teach little ones about plants and roots!
VIEW MY FOLLOW UP POST ON HOW TO ROOT A SWEET POTATO HERE!
What you need:
1 sweet potato (a regular russet potato will work too!)
Toothpicks
A glass of water
For rooting, you are better off buying organic since some potatoes are treated with a growth retardant in order to stop them from rooting or growing “eyes” while they are sitting in the grocery store. This increases their shelf life and, in my opinion, is another reason to buy organic… I don’t want to eat growth retardants.
What to do:
First, stick 3-4 toothpicks around the center of the sweet potato:
Place it in the glass. the toothpicks should rest of the end of the glass holding the sweet potato up so it is not touching the bottom of the glass:
Fill your glass up with water so about 1/3 to 1/4 of the sweet potato is submerged in the water:
Anywhere from a few days to a week or two you should start to see roots sprout from the submerged part of the sweet potato:
After a while longer, you should see stems (and if you leave it long enough, leaves) sprout out of the top of your sweet potato until you have something that looks like this:
Keep it in a warm sunny window and keep adding water as needed.
If you would like to grow your sweet potato for the vines alone,once you have a good amount of white roots established, you can leave it in a container of water or plant your potato in some soil. Sweet potatoes do well in all types of soil. Make sure the whole potato and all the roots are underneath the soil. If you are planting in a pot, make sure you the soil can drain well, otherwise your sweet potato may rot.
Water and provide sunlight as usual.
If you would like to plant sweet potatoes for, well, more sweet potatoes, break off the little branches that grew out of the top of the sweet potato at the base (these are called slips) and plant them into the soil. Sweet potatoes need a good long, warm growing season so start your sprouts in the winter time and plant them in the spring once the danger of frost has past.
Once the green plant part of your sweet potato dies back (usually around the time the first frost will return) you can harvest your sweet potatoes which, if all went well, should have multiplied!
Now go sprout some tubers!
Happy Planting! 
VIEW MY FOLLOW UP POST ON HOW TO ROOT A SWEET POTATO HERE!
