How to Teach Children to Grow Flowers

Children are fascinated with nature and almost never pass up the opportunity to learn more about it. Teaching children how to grow flowers can be a very rewarding and fun experience for both the adult and child. Children learn best using hands-on techniques, but can also learn about growing flowers through song and play.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Stop by the local library to get books about flowers and gardening. Children should understand the science behind the concept of how flowers grow. Such books as "The Tiny Seed" by Eric Carle describe how seeds are carried by wind and planted into the earth.
2. Visit a greenhouse or nursery so that the child can ask experts about flowers and how they grow. This is a mini-field trip for the child, allowing her to question the workers about various plants and flowers.
3. Purchase a packet of seeds for the child to grow in his home garden. Plant the seeds with the child, and make daily observations. Take note of any particular sunlight that hits the garden and how often you and your child water the seeds.
4. Make up songs about concepts such as pollination and chlorophyll to help the children understand more about nature and how flowers grow. By introducing science vocabulary to the child, you help foster her natural curiosities. Let the child dance or sway like a flower for creative purposes.
5. Visit other gardens and greenhouses often. Children love new experiences and learn more and more about how flowers grow by making more observations, interviewing greenhouse keepers and growing more and more seeds of their own.