Google tells me that the world’s tallest sunflower grew to over 7 metres tall. So ours aren’t going to break any records but they have reached a very respectable 2m 47 cm. (Did I hear you say ‘wow!’?) They have brought us so much pleasure over the summer and the girls have learned lots of things through growing them. The sunflower height chart we made also revealed that Little isn’t quite as little as she was when we planted our seeds as she has grown 2.5cm too. Although they have grown tall this year the flowers appeared early and have faded now and we’re wondering what to do with the seeds – so if you have any suggestions we would love to hear them.
If you have been growing sunflowers or doing any sunflower linked crafts or activities we would love you to link up with your posts. Please use the linky below to show us how your sunflowers have fared and to give us some craft and activity ideas to use next year.
Thanks for following along in our Sunflower Club – we hope you’ve had fun too.
(You could add a link in your post to here so your readers can come and share all the ideas in the link-up too.)
Do you grow fruit and vegetables with your children?
Children benefit so much from seeing where food really comes from – and I find they’re much more likely to try new foods if they’ve helped to grow and prepare it. A cut and come again salad is a great way to start, no matter how small your garden. Sow the seeds in a pot of compost, have the children water them and wait for the seedlings to pop up. The good thing about a cut and come again salad is just that – the children can help themselves to a few leaves and the plant will kindly grow them some more. Sow seeds every 3-4 weeks and you’ll have a summer full of salad. Add a cherry tomato plant and let the children tuck in. The girls loved going on a treasure hunt round the garden looking for things to put in their salad and found lettuce, radish, nasturtiums and herbs. They ate the lot!
I love child-led learning. When I’m helping a child learn a new skill I try to put them and their interests at the centre of any activity. Little is starting to be very interested in letters and writing and I’m always looking for ways to encourage her to explore these ideas. So when she discovered this beautiful green caterpillar in the garden we used it as a springboard to play.
She was wondering where the caterpillar’s head was and we were talking about the spiral shape it had made as it curled up. We grabbed some outdoor chalks and tried to copy the shape ourselves. It’s great for children to try making all sorts of marks – not just using paper and pencil, and not straightaway trying to write letters.
Then we talked about the word caterpillar and what sound came at the beginning – which lead us on to writing a ‘c’.
And also inspired the next letter for our touchy-feely alphabet: c is for caterpillar.
This week why not get some chalks and see what shapes you can make?
How are your sunflowers coming along? Ours went out in the garden a couple of weeks ago. The tallest one is up to 45cm on our sunflower height chart and mostly they’re doing well – working their way up the wall but not yet taller than Little. One however has been munched. The girls were horrified! Who had done such a thing? Pulling some ivy off the wall this weekend we found our answer: 14 snails, sat biding their time, waiting for the feasting to begin. I am such a hippy, harmony-promoting gardener that I can’t bring myself to squash them, so they are flung over the back wall (into an alleyway, not someone else’s garden!) – which of course only delays the munching.
Before the snails went for the high jump, we put them through their paces in a Snail Race.
On Your Marks....
This gave the girls the opportunity to look at the snails up close and ask lots of questions about their shells, slime and ‘sticky out bits’. Snail World had all the answers. We talked about our responsibilty to animals and both girls were very careful when handling the snails. One thing we did discover was that snails just don’t understand the concept of keeping in your own lane – so if you fancy trying this I’d suggest more of a ‘bull’s eye’ circular race track, starting all the snails in the centre and seeing which makes it to the circumference first.
Victory to Snail #1
What do you do when you find snails, or slugs, in your garden? Have you got any alternative solutions to stop them munching?
Following on from the success of our Dinosaur Garden, this weekend we’ve been working on a Fairy Garden. The film below shows how we made it – now we’re eagerly waiting for the seeds to start growing so the flower fairies can really feel at home.
The music on the film is kindly provided by Anne van Schothorst and is from a piece called A Bird Came Flying.
As the weather is getting warmer and we’re starting to spend more time outside I thought I’d show you one way my girls love to play in our garden: in our Dinosaur Land. Big recently did a ‘show and tell’ at school about gardening and the Dinosaur Land proved to be so popular an idea with her classmates, that several of them have gone home and made their own – so it comes highly recommended.
This kind of ‘small world’ play is fantastic for young children: they get to be the boss of the world, create characters, role play situations, use their language skills, be imaginative….. I love watching children engaged in this kind of play as it really gives you an insight into where they’re at, what’s concerning them, what they’re exploring at this present time. Big’s characters are often having battles at the moment, as she works through ideas of ‘being fair’ and negotiations. Little’s play in nearly always focused on a family group and playing out familiar routines – her dinosaurs get tucked up in bed and read a bedtime story.
As always, this idea is easy to make and you’re likely to have most, if not all, of the things you need around your home.
Start by finding a big plastic storage box and making some drainage holes in the bottom. Then let your children fill it up with soil – good, messy fun. Add a few rocks – we have one big one, which the dinosaurs like to stand on to survey their territory, and some smaller one to sit on. How about some plants for the dinos to eat and hide in? Have you got one to spare somewhere in one of your borders? The grassy one we used works really well – low maintenance, pretty robust and won’t get too overgrown. You can add any other props which catch your children’s eye: glass pebbles, fir cones, sticks, water too if you’d like a swamp area.
Then it’s over to the kids to get playing.
If your children are enjoying the garden, have a look at our Sunflower Club for more outside play ideas.
Our sunflowers have now moved outside to our little greenhouse to enjoy the Spring sunshine and get them used to being outside. We’ve been out enjoying the garden too. Little has been especially interested to see creatures out there. She will stop in her tracks and peer at her feet, watching an ant running around. Big is interested to know which animals are goodies (that would include worms and ladybirds) or badies (which definitely includes slugs and snails). So we have decided so survey what animals we have sharing our garden with us by playing… Garden Bingo!
First we talked about what animals we might expect to see. (Sorry Little, but no elephants are likely to be found.) Then we drew pictures of them. Everyone can join in with this, no matter how young or artisically challenged they might be. Little did a great worm, ladybird and spider – with carefully counted legs. Big’s cat is very characterful and her butterfly is perfectly symmetrical. I was able to muster some greenfly and wowed everyone with my woodpigeon.
Then we stuck our animal pictures on to our bingo card and wrote their names underneath, along with a tick box for each one. Each time we spot an animal in the garden we’re going to tick them off our card. Take time to have a good look at each animal as you see them. Look at their shape, colour and patterns and count their legs (or note their lack off). Talk about their role in the garden ecosystem and decide if they are goodies or badies.
If you like a competition you could make each person a slightly different bingo card to see who can spot all their creatures first to get a ‘full house’. We like to promote harmony in our garden so we have one big bingo card to complete all together.
If you’re out in the garden and growing things with your children, come and join in with our Sunflower Club to get a Spring and Summer full of activities all linked to growing and gardening.
I can’t tell you how excited we were to discover our baby seedlings have popped their heads above the soil. Big and Little were dancing! The plantlets are tiny at the moment but we have high hopes, and to monitor their progress we have made a Sunflower Height Chart.
We started by drawing a leaf for each member of the family, colouring them in and writing our names on them.
Then, using a roll of paper stuck to the side of the fridge, we drew a tall, tall sunflower stalk. We all stood against it to measure how tall we are, and used our leaf to mark our height. This gave us lots of chat about big, small, medium and so on. And about how children grow taller but grown-ups do not.
And then it was the sunflowers’ turn. Big measured them with a ruler and discovered they were 4cm tall already.
Over on the height chart we measured 4 cm up the stalk and coloured it in green. We’ll keep measuring and ‘growing’ our height chart stalk as the plants grow. Maybe the girls will grow over the Summer too. The children are especially excited about the sunflowers growing above their heads. And as Daddy is 6’4” the little seedings have a lot to beat.
This is part of our Sunflower Club project - and it’s never to late to join. There’s still plenty of time to get planting. And if you do and you blog about it, please link up with the MckLinky so we can all see how you’re getting on. Pop over for a look now to see themadhouse’s great idea for using eggshell planters.
Please feel free to use any of these ideas with your children at home, school or any place you teach and play. If you would like to share a post on a blog or site, you may use one picture so long as you include a link to the original post. Please do not re-post the whole article or distribute printed-out content without written permission from the original author. You can contact me at cathy (at) nurturestore (dot) co (dot) uk. Thank you.
