Cut flower activity ideas

[mumofone]

My 6 year old mindee loves picking flowers on the way home from school. Does anyone have any good ideas of things I could do with her with the flowers etc to sustain her interest?

[loocyloo]

*Press them. Then make pictures, book marks etc
*Drying them in the airing cupboard and using to make 3d pictures, pot pourri etc
*Turn them into fairy clothes
*Make perfume
*Crystalize rose petals to decorate cakes

[FloraDora]

The rules about picking wild flowers | Law | The Guardian

Great ideas Loocyloo.

I often turn my outside play kitchen in to a perfumery with old petals from my garden, coloured water and lots of mixing bowls and spoons, funnels and tiny travel bottles. The LO's stir and mash and pour, if herbs are there too it makes a lovely smell - lavendar especially.
I always put a writing station nearby to write labels, recipes etc..
Last time I added bowls to bath the babies in what they have made.

Reminds me of when I was little and used to make my mum rose water out of our rose garden petals.

We collect wildflower leaves and flowers and when we get home I spread them on a big sheet for us to catagories them, great for inspiration to use describing words like spikey, soft, prickly, pointed, sharp, and gets the LO's looking and thinking...colour sorting is good too - especially with all the shades of green.

[Maza]

Make a vase for them out of reclaimed materials
set up a role play flower shop
make a fairy garden (or another small world scene if she isn't into fairies)
make daisy chains
observational drawings/paintings with pastels or water colours
land art
use the petals to make a suncatcher (if you still have a paper plate left, you could cut out the centre and replace it with some sticky back plastic and add the petals)

Please do make sure you observe the 'flower picking' rules because I have seen quite a few altercations when parents have let their children pick flowers from places where they shouldn't.

[Maza]

Just remembered, my 6 year old is learning the names of the parts of a flowering plant, and so your mindee possibly is too (a popular Summer term science topic for year ones).

Whenever I get given a bunch of flowers I always set up a printing activity with them before I bin them. It works best with flowers such as big daisies.

[mama2three]

Some really lovely ideas - but I must be a bit of a meanie! My tribe aren't allowed to pick leaves or flowers that are growing..even daisies etc...
it goes back to when we set up forest school many years ago..our 3 prime rules don't pick anything , don't squash anything , don't eat anything.

[Mouse]

Picking flowers from public places is a pet hate of mine. I was really surprised to see a childminder post a picture on facebook of her minded children picking daffodils in a park! She said they did really well and got loads. They were tying them up in bunches to take home for mums!

I was equally surprised by the number of people saying what a lovely idea it was!!

We never pick anything growing while we're out. We pick up fallen leaves etc, but don't take anything off trees or plants.

At home I do let the children pick leaves and flowers from the garden, but they know what they can pick & what they can't. We grow a lot of lavender and we pick that each year then dry it out and make things with it - it's lovely added to home made play dough

[Kirstylob]

I allow my lo's to pick daisies and dandelions as they seem to be everywhere! They can pick fallen leaves and blossom but never anything from anyone's garden.
Last year after a particularly successful wandering through the woods 2 little girls had collected and nice selection of flowers and leaves. To keep them looking fresh we laminated them. I opened up a laminating pouch and they arranged the flowers and leaves. When they were happy we closed the sheet, flattened it down and put it through the laminator. We stuck them on the window and they looked lovely.

[Kerry30]

I have an lo who is so desperate to pick flowers all the time. Daisies and dandelions i dont mind but anything else is a big no no. I always point out how beautiful the flowers look and get them to find colours etc. I think its lovely when u see daffodils growing in parks. I only had 2 come up in my planter this year and lo was desperate to pick them. If there had been alot more i may have let them pick them to put in a vase inside but sadly the 2 i had didnt flower for long!

[FloraDora]

Some really lovely ideas - but I must be a bit of a meanie! My tribe aren't allowed to pick leaves or flowers that are growing..even daisies etc...
it goes back to when we set up forest school many years ago..our 3 prime rules don't pick anything , don't squash anything , don't eat anything.

I understand where you are coming from and like others I think it's important to teach that cultivated flowers, ones that have been planted by someone for a particular purpose is definately a no go area. Which was why I put the link on my thread.
But my forest school training encouraged observation and classification at an early age. Which also involved taking samples of wild leaves, blossom, flowers classed as weeds for learning purpose. Not to pick leaves and blossom randomly and throw away or screw up, but collect samples for a purpose e.g looking at shades of green, shapes of tree leaves, was fine.

That's how great Botanists learnt about the plants. So I think it's ok that we do a Darwin walk in our wildlife nature area and collect using a criteria, our local wildlife group encourages this too as long as care for the environment is paramount alongside it and we are not collecting in quantity and Finding things on the ground is encouraged and preferable.
They do however pick the flower heads and press them or use them in their perfumery play from my garden and I make it clear that it's on an ask basis, they all can spot a flower as it starts to die as they keenly want to use it for another purpose. Mostly, because they have sown the seeds and nurtured they just like to watch the life cycle and see the dying bit as when they come in and think of a further ' life' for the poor flower.

[k1rstie]

My front and back garden are really shady in summer and not very much grows.

In the spring, I have tons of daffodils, bluebells, tulips and hyacinths growing ( as the garden is not shaded then). My bulbs look spectacular.

I would be devastated if any of my children picked them. I have often seen children pick daffodils from parks and communal areas, and them dump them about 100m further down the road.

image-2271620516.jpg

My huge tulips come from Costco, and are fantastic.

[hectors house]

Make a vase for them out of reclaimed materials
set up a role play flower shop
make a fairy garden (or another small world scene if she isn't into fairies)
make daisy chains
observational drawings/paintings with pastels or water colours
land art
use the petals to make a suncatcher (if you still have a paper plate left, you could cut out the centre and replace it with some sticky back plastic and add the petals)

Please do make sure you observe the 'flower picking' rules because I have seen quite a few altercations when parents have let their children pick flowers from places where they shouldn't.

We all made the paper plate suncatcher at toddlers today - it was really easy and effective (apart from trying to peel backing off of stick back plastic). I am considering doing this again with leaves in the Autumn.

[Maza]

We all made the paper plate suncatcher at toddlers today - it was really easy and effective (apart from trying to peel backing off of stick back plastic). I am considering doing this again with leaves in the Autumn.

Oh I'm glad it worked well. I got the idea from 'The Artful Parent'. I haven't got round to doing it yet but I will. x

[mumofone]

I allow my lo's to pick daisies and dandelions as they seem to be everywhere! They can pick fallen leaves and blossom but never anything from anyone's garden. Last year after a particularly successful wandering through the woods 2 little girls had collected and nice selection of flowers and leaves. To keep them looking fresh we laminated them. I opened up a laminating pouch and they arranged the flowers and leaves. When they were happy we closed the sheet, flattened it down and put it through the laminator. We stuck them on the window and they looked lovely.

Love this idea, thank you :-)

[primula]

I allow my lo's to pick daisies and dandelions as they seem to be everywhere! They can pick fallen leaves and blossom but never anything from anyone's garden.
Last year after a particularly successful wandering through the woods 2 little girls had collected and nice selection of flowers and leaves. To keep them looking fresh we laminated them. I opened up a laminating pouch and they arranged the flowers and leaves. When they were happy we closed the sheet, flattened it down and put it through the laminator. We stuck them on the window and they looked lovely.

Guess what I will be doing next week thank you!