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You are here: Home / Spring Activities / Our Favorite Preschool Garden Activity with Sunflowers

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Our Favorite Preschool Garden Activity with Sunflowers

April 19, 2017 by Sheryl Cooper

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Last Updated on April 26, 2024 by Sheryl Cooper

Inside this post: Our favorite preschool garden activity includes mammoth sunflowers. They are easy to plant, grow quickly, and transfer well outdoors. Plus, they grow really tall, something preschoolers find fascinating!

When I was a new teacher I had no idea where to start when it came to gardening activities. I gardened with my own children, but that seemed easy because it was usually one-on-one. But with 16? It felt a bit daunting. Have you felt this way, too? Somehow I figured out how to put together a sunflower garden project that not only involved all 16 preschoolers, but involved 16 individual cups of seeds being planted and nurtured.

And it’s a hit year after year.

I will admit I don’t recall why I chose mammoth sunflowers, but they have been the easiest and fastest growing plants, year after year. Over the summer I will get emails with photos of the preschoolers standing next to their super tall sunflowers, beaming. They had nurtured their sunflowers every day with love, water, and sunshine. They learned what it was like to taking care of a living thing.

This is why I do this sunflower garden project year after year!

preschool garden activity

Our Favorite Preschool Garden Activity with Sunflowers


What you will need:

  • Mammoth sunflower seeds
  • Plastic cups
  • Soil
  • Spray bottle
  • Bin to hold soil
  • Scoop to transfer soil to cup
  • Labels to identify the owner of the plant (available towards bottom of this post)

Setting up this sunflower garden project:

  •  Place soil in a bin along with a scoop.
  • Have seeds available in a shallow tray.
  • Fill spray bottle with water.
  • Place cups near soil.
preschool garden activity

Before starting, share a book about how seeds grow. We displayed these on our science table along with a model that showed the sequence of a seed’s growth.

Favorite Sunflower Books

  • Little Sunflower
  • Sunflower House
  • A Sunflower’s Life Cycle
  • Plants for Kids: Sunflowers
preschool garden activity

Scoop soil into the cup. Poke 2 holes on the top and place a seed in each one. (I have them plant 2 because sometimes one never takes off.) Gently cover the seeds with soil.

preschool garden activity

Spray soil with water.

preschool garden activity
preschool garden activity

I placed plastic wrap on top of ours and set in front of the window. This kept the soil moist and warm. Our preschoolers would give them sprays of water now and then, watching for those first signs of growth.

preschool garden activity

In one week they looked like this:

preschool garden activity

I made name labels and taped them to craft sticks, poking them into each cup. I realized afterwards that it would have been easier having the label placed directly on the cup, especially when the cups were covered with plastic wrap.

Since this particular activity, I’ve created new labels that can be taped on the cup. Scroll to the bottom of this post to download your copy!

preschool garden activity

Now they are ready to be taken home!

preschool garden activity
preschool garden activity

Click on the graphics below for your free pdf download:

free sunflower gardening labels for kids
tpt garden nursery dramatic play
toddler and preschool seasonal coloring pages
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Filed Under: Music and Movement, preschool, Preschool Science, Science, Spring Activities, Toddlers Tagged With: nature, preschool, science, spring, toddlers

About Sheryl Cooper

Sheryl Cooper is the founder of Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds, a website full of activities for toddlers and preschoolers. She has been teaching this age group for over 25 years and loves to share her passion with teachers, parents, grandparents, and anyone with young children in their lives.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Alexa

    May 23, 2016 at 11:09 am

    I love this project! I’m doing something similar with my second and third grade students (I teach special education resource). The name tags are super cute, do you have a word file for those? I’d love to use the one you created. Thanks!!

    Alexa

    • Sheryl Cooper

      May 23, 2016 at 8:06 pm

      I love hearing this, Alexa! I look forward to planting with my students every spring. Thank you for stopping by! Sheryl

  2. Tolisa

    June 3, 2017 at 8:12 pm

    Where did you get the seed models?

    • Sheryl Cooper

      June 4, 2017 at 12:49 pm

      Hi Tolisa – Try Amazon and do a search for plant life cycle model.

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