Yesterday a few of the children discovered our big sunflower and started pulling seeds out using tweezers.
Today one little girl showed up later in the morning and went directly to the sunflower table. Her mom explained to me that they weren’t planning on coming today but her daughter insisted because she wanted to work on the sunflower.
As she worked, her mom called me over to show me something they discovered. They noticed that when they opened one of the seeds they found a little white, banana looking thing inside. We realized that is the edible part of the seed. The seeds are still white because it hasn’t ripen completely.
Their excitement drew another child who had yet to spend any time with the sunflower. He began picking out the white seeds. At one point they had pulled a lot of seeds from one spot and noticed that it was white underneath. The girl said it looked like cotton. Her mom said it looked like marshmallow. When they push the tweezers into it went right through.
We flipped it over to find the tweezers. The stem was partially broken and we were able to inspect the inside more. It is soft, white and a little sticky.
When we flipped it over we noticed how the leaves grew in layers and I wondered how we could make a sunflower at the art table.
We decided to paint sunflowers. I thought we would make one big one but the children decided to make their own. I appreciate how the boy is checking out the petals before he starts to paint.
As we painted another child became interested and joined us.
I posted their flowers around the table so others can be inspired. I wonder what other mediums we could use to create sunflowers.
I wonder what we will do with all the seeds we have picked?
I’m hoping to find a sunflower that is ripe so we can pick and compare the seeds.