What a beautiful day! It has been so hot. I am so happy that Evie is now a toddler & is really starting to explore the world as a little person. I've been excited about this age & all of the fun activities that come with it. Today we decided to try out gardening.
I love sunflowers! They're such a happy, beautiful flower. I thought it might be fun to plant one together & then get Evie to help water it regularly & watch it to grow. I've been trying to do more sensory activities & thought planting would be good because there are lots of new textures for Evie to discover.
I thought she might be a bit young for this, but she actually surprised me & really got involved. I put a bit of soil in the pot for her & she was a bit nervous about putting her hands in at first.
As soon as I gave her the sunflower seed packet, all she wanted to do was shake it & dance as it rattled. She was reluctant to let me add them to the soil but soon had fun squashing them down.
She's never played with soil before & spent ages sprinkling it & sifting it through her fingers. There was such a mess at the end I'm glad we did this outside! I'm definitely going to do a garden sensory bin soon & fill it with soil, different toys & let her add water to it & get as mucky as she likes.
When it came to watering the sunflower, Evie much preferred to drink the water herself. I eventually persuaded her to share it with the seeds & we patted the soil down together.
We added the windmill at the end to detract birds from stealing the yummy sunflower seeds. Now we just have to wait for it to grow. We'll post a picture when (if) anything sprouts!
Have you ever grown sunflowers before? Feel free to leave any links below with posts of you gardening with your toddler! Also, any tips on growing flowers would be great! I've never been great with plants & I'd love for this to grow.
Sunflowers were the first thing I grew with my Evie at about the same age. It did really well, but we were living in Cyprus at the time so we had the key ingredient: sun! I don't think it really matters though, best bit is seeing them have fun with mud. Lovely post with gorgeous pictures, which brought back lovely memories. #KidsCorner Over from www.cookwithtoddlers.com/community
ReplyDeleteAww thank you! Haha we haven't had much sun lately but they're actually growing really well. I'm yet to do her a mud sensory box, but i'm waiting for a warmer day. I can't wait to try it out. I'm so jealous that you lived abroad! That must have been incredible. x
Deleteahh love this great photos! I love that she's drinking out of the watering can thats hilarious thanks so much for linking up to #kidscorner
ReplyDeleteThat's ok! Haha she was sad to part with the water when we had to feed it to the flowers. But she's started to enjoy watering it regularly now. x
DeleteWhat a great post! Sun and sunflowers - a perfect start to gardening. Beautiful pictures too! Flowers in pots need watering regularly but that's ok as she's clearly enjoying it! Have you thought about planting herbs in pots in the garden to stimulate her senses? Great for a toddler as they are easy to grow and she can eat them too! Hope you continue to enjoy planting things together :)
ReplyDeleteThat's a great idea! Making a little toddler garden. I do really want her to learn how to grow & make her own food. It's such an invaluable skill & I will be starting it young. :-D x
DeleteOh this is so cute! I love that you have a windmill in it for the meantime too! I hope it grows tall for her :-) Thanks for sharing in #KidsCorner x
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for hosting! :-) x
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