How to Start A Sunflower Race

Summer time is a wonderful time to get kids excited about the environment. Having a Sunflower race with siblings, neighbor hood kids, grandkids, or just between you and your child is a great way to start the excitement.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Small flowerpots.
• All purpose soil mix
• Trowel
• Sunflower seeds.
• Plant labels to make kids name on their plant
• Dark corner or black plastic.
• Large flower pots
• Watering can
• Liquid plant food

1. Have all children gathered around table with individual supplies at hand.
2. Children should fill pot with soil mixture and press in their seed. Smaller children may need soil put in pot before project starts.
3. Have the children water their seed, just enough for all soil on top to be damp.
4. Put pots in a dark corner or cover with black plasic (part of a black trash bag works well) to germinate.
5. In a couple of days you will see a bit of green pop over the soil. At this time the plant is done germinating and should be placed back into the light.
6. When the plants get about a foot tall they can be moved into bigger pots.
7. To help Sunflowers' grow tall, let the children give them liquid plant food once a week. This can be found at most places that plants are sold.
8. The sunflowers can grow taller then a child a times, their might be a time were the flower will need to be transplanted into a bigger pot or into the ground.
9. At the end of a set time measure the sunflowers to determine the winner. After the sunflower begins to grow it may be fun for children to keep a growth chart of the plant.

Tips & Warnings

• Germination is the first stage of growth from a seed to a plant.