Early Spring

The winter in Switzerland this year has been extremely mild. In fact, we only had one week of snow. Unfortunately, during that period I was unable to try snowflake collecting. Let’s hope next winter brings more snow (can’t believe I just wrote that). This post will offer up some nice Spring activities involving flowers. Most of the activities are for Preschoolers:

Activities:

In Switzerland there is a lot of flower picking opportunities both free and pick/pay. First children can pick flowers of different kind and color. Flowers are brought back and sorted by color or kind and each category is counted. Cheap plastic vases and wood chips (with numbers painted on them) can be fashioned with Velcro and used to mark how many flowers are in each vase. This is an adaptation of FlowerShop homeschool activity. Counting and Sorting games are great for teaching math. I highly recommend looking at this site for other ideas.

Collecting white flowers, children can watch how flowers take up water. With white flowers, like Carnations or Queen Ann’s Lace, cut small piece of stem from bottom and place flower in vase containing water with a few drops of food coloring. Watch throughout the day as the petals change color. Details here

Don’t forget to have one group of flowers without food coloring to serve as a control.

When doing activities with flowers one possibility is to choose edible flowers. After main activity is finished the flowers can be tasted. If your child is like mine they may not readily eat the flowers. Why not sweeten the experience by preparing candied or crystallized flowers. List of edible flowers with comments on taste can be found here. Allergy prone individuals should not eat flowers.

More long term projects such as drying flowers and planting seeds are good for older children. Make a outdoor garden using an old baby pool. Make holes at the bottom of the pool then fill with dirt and plant flowers. Or a Baggie Garden by placing a a wet paper towel into a Ziploc bag and adding seeds.

Happy Spring