If you are like me you are wanting to sort out your seeds for planting next year. I don’t know about you, but I often have seeds that are out of date that I have got left from previous years or I have been given. Here are two activities that you can use to keep youngsters busy so that you have an excuse to have your seeds out.
BUILD A PICTURE WITH OLD SEEDS
My father used to have a picture on the wall and it was all made from seeds stuck to a canvas. I used to admire it when I used to visit and still intend to make a big one of my own one day. It is a nice activity for children to do. It is best done on card as some seeds are heavy. The picture can be hand drawn or cut from a colouring book and stuck on to card. I always get the children to sort the seeds out into little containers first and then stick them on to the picture individually. It keeps them occupied for ages and you can talk about what the different seeds are as they stick them on the picture and so it is teaching them about plants and vegetables. It might even give them a nudge to want to plant some later.
RECOGNISING SEEDS
Another activity to help children learn about the different seeds is to give them a pile of mixed up seeds and a pair of eye brow tweezers. You provide them with a labelled ice cube tray or small dishes with the name of the vegetable (or picture if they can not read) and get them to put the right seed into the right dish. You can always put the first one into the dish as an example. You can do it as a game to see which sibling can do it the fastest and knock seconds off for any seed in the wrong dish, or to see if the child can beat their last time. Children will get used to recognising seeds and handling them and it is a great way to use old seeds. I quickly made examples to take photos to show what I mean but you could have a lot more dishes and even stick pictures of the vegetables from the packs on to the dishes.
