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Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Let Me Introduce the Grassheads Family


They come from humble beginnings – just trash and dirt and some old pantyhose. Oh, and grass seed too. I’ve been dying to blog about this activity for two weeks, but growing grass takes patience and until our family had enough hair, you just wouldn’t have gotten the full effect.

When I stumbled on Ms. White’s First Grade classroom blog and saw her class’ adorable grass-headed fellas, I e-mailed her straight away to find out how she’d done it. I knew my son would think this was cool. (He'd be crazy not to, right?!?) She kindly pointed me to Disney’s Family Fun site for instructions.

To teach my son about growing plants from seed, we read Joanna Cole’s book, The Magic School Bus Plants Seeds: A Book About How Living Things Grow. Then we got our hands dirty.

What you need:
Pantyhose foot (ones without reinforced toe would look better)
Soil (1 c. per grasshead)
Grass seed (2 tbsp. per grasshead)
Googly eyes
Recycled yogurt cups
Scrapbooking papers, embellishments
Double-sided tape
Permanent marker to draw a smile
School glue and/or glue stick

What you do:
Use double-sided tape to add decorative papers to your yogurt cups for “shirts.” Glue on additional embellishments.

Then cut the foot off of your panty hose (I found this to be quite liberating!). Fill the toe with 2 Tbsp. of grass seed. Top with 1 cup of soil. Tie the excess pantyhose in a knot and leave a 1-inch tail. Add a smile and glue on googly eyes.

Fill each cup half full with water. Set your grassheads on top of the yogurt cup shirts, making sure the pantyhose tail is dipped in the water (it will act as a wick and soak up the water).

Monitor your grassheads daily, adding water up to the half-full mark when needed. In seven days, you should see some grass beginning to sprout. After about 2 weeks, your grassheads will have a full head of “hair!”

These were just as much fun to make as they were to watch grow! Not only did my son learn about growing plants from seed, but he was responsible for checking them each day to see if they needed to be "watered."

Fun. Educational. And, pretty darn cute too, I'd say.

8 comments:

  1. My oldest son made these in preschool a couple yrs ago and I fell in love with it just like you. They are so stinkin cute!! :)

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  2. LOVE these!!!

    Would love it if you could share this on Serenity Saturday over at serenityyou.blogspot.com

    xxx

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  3. I love these - all 3 of my kids would love making these - thanks for the idea!

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  4. These are so cute! What a fun idea!

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  5. These are amazing!! I'm so glad you posted HOW to make them!! Thank you for linking up, too!

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  6. i i i lady- you do have a great thing going on here! I love the "Hot mama" grass head ;-) Thank you again for sharing all of your wonderful posts with us on The Sunday Showcase

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