Welcome to another Wacky Workshops project – how to make a growing flower.

You don’t need any gardening skills and won’t even get your hands dirty doing this one.

In fact, this project is so easy I recently did it with 30 preschoolers, aged three to five.

One of the Goddesses took something we made together into her day care centre as her news item.

The teacher was so impressed with the Starlight Express Desk Caddy that she contacted me to see if I would run an arts and crafts class at the centre.

I couldn’t refuse. Especially knowing two of the Goddesses, cousins who attend the same centre, would get a kick out of seeing Grandy run a class.

The project was a big success. The look of delight on the children’s faces when they saw the flower ‘grow’ as it popped its head out of the cup was priceless. The Goddesses haven’t stopped telling me how much they loved this craft project, though, of course, we create together every week.

HOW TO MAKE A GROWING FLOWER

MATERIALS

• Foam cups – you could also use paper cups but the fragile nature of the foam cups is excellent training for control and fine motor skills.
• Pipe cleaners – we used green – you will need a full-length and a half-length pipe cleaner for each flower.
• Coloured paper
• Markers
• Glue
• Skewer/toothpick
• Flower-shaped cookie cutter – optional
• Sequins – optional

METHOD

PRE-PREP

When working with little kids it’s always a good idea to do a little preparation before you get started. Some of the tasks are too difficult for them, such as cutting out the flower shapes, and they have short attention spans so pre-prep is essential.

I cut out flower shapes from the coloured paper using a cookie cutter as a guide (you could easily do it freehand though). That’s right, more than 60 flower shapes as the children needed two each and I always do a few extras. I worked out how many shapes I could cut in one go without breaking the scissors, or my hands, which cut down on the amount of cutting I had to do.

It’s also a good idea to pre-cut the pipe cleaners and use a wooden skewer to put a hole in the centre of the bottom of each cup.

I had already made an example flower so I could show the children what they were making, which was a gift for their mums for Mother’s Day.

It was also an opportunity to explain to the children how easily the foam cups can be broken if they are handled without care.

THE PROJECT – HOW TO MAKE A GROWING FLOWER

• The first step is to get the children to draw grass and flowers, a little garden, using the markers, around the outside of the cup.
• Get the children to glue the paper flower shapes on each side of the long pipe cleaner.
• At this stage I had the children glue a sequin to the centre of their flowers.
• Have them twist the short pipe cleaner into a leaf shape and then twist this around the long pipe cleaner, near the flower. NOTE: Some children may need help with this step but it is another excellent activity for fine motor skills.
• When the flower is complete, help the children thread the bottom of the long pipe cleaner through the hole in the cup, going through from the inside of the cup.

Now they can pull the pipe cleaner up and down to make their flower grow.

To go with this project I printed little flower pots on paper to make Mother’s Day cards.

The pots had a sign on the front saying “thank you for helping me grow” and the children’s task was to draw flowers growing from the pot.

A beautiful gift for the mums and a really fun activity for the kids.

I hope you enjoyed this project. Please be sure to share.

Follow me on Pinterest for more fun crafts.

Happy crafting and have a gleeful week, Tamuria.