Fall is a lovely time to study sunflowers. Our literature for the week was The Lion and the Mouse. I added sunflowers to the mix since they were growing all over town and in season. It helps that a sunflower can resemble an artistic lion...if you squint a bit.
My sunflowers at home had gone past a few weeks before and I saved one of the dried head for exploration. Since I had no fresh flowers I picked up a bouquet at Trader Joe's and popped them all about the classroom. One large bunch was featured on our nature and science table and one of the students got to exploring it with a cinnamon stick. Of course!
Before placing the flower head on the table, I brushed at it a bit to make it a smidge less pokey. The children explored it with our magnifying glasses and used tweezers to remove seeds.
We also had a jar of store bought seeds for scooping and pouring. SOe of the seeds made their way to our play-dough table.
I made the dough and added a bit of lavender oil for scent. Add some seeds and some glitter and the children played and played for the longest time!
As we observed our sunflowers, the children named the colors they saw and we sorted our beads to make our own sunflower colored bracelets.
There was also some dissection going on. We wrote down the words the children used to describe what they saw, felt, and smelled. We talked about our senses as we made our observations.
The children painted up egg cartons and scooped out seeds into green paper envelopes to take home for home sorting and playing. They were so proud! At the end of the week I sent the children home with a recipe for chocolate covered sunflower seed oatmeal cookies. Those were super tasty! We also did a lot of arty projects which I will post next. Sunflowers were a lot of fun to explore for the week. We will definitely do it again!
I absolutely love this. Much of this could be done with older kids, too. Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteThank you and I agree! You could really go all out with art and adding see Van Gogh (of course) and seed sprouting. I love doing jar sprouting and we even eat the sprouts. Tasty! We'll be revisiting the sunflower in the spring.
DeleteOh, this makes me miss summer here in Minnesota! We love exploring with sunflowers too, and last summer we had giant ones in the back yard that the birds absolutely adored. I meant to cut off a dried sunflower head and hang it where we could see it inside for the birds this winter, but they ate all the seeds up before I got a chance. Next year I'll have to grab a few heads before the birds get a chance -- and plant more to keep them happy. :)
ReplyDeleteThe birds are my favorite part. If only we had a really good viewing window. Our windows are too tall for the kiddos to see out of. Lately I have been having them stand on our kitchen counter which is super wide and is next to our sink where we have a step stool. They come and tell me they want to watch birds so we all go over and climb on up! Yes, save a head or two! We had well over 20 sunflowers and the birds got to all of them save for the one I snatched up!
DeleteQuite crafty. The flower looks amazing. Reminded me of one summer I had back in my town. There were many sunflowers and they look so pretty. Too bad I live in the city now. I wish I get to see them everyday during summer like I used to
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