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Sunflowers, Sprouts and Gardens

Sunflower Challenge Celebration Special

Cover the Earth with Giant Sunflowers! Set of 25 seed packets for sprouting activities at school or to send home as a family-science extension. Any student who grows a giant sunflower and sends a photo to Earth’s Birthday Project receives a prize and certificate honoring their gift to the Earth. Complete information on seed packets.
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Celebrate the Sunflower Challenge

Earth’s Birthday Project celebrates students who took the Sunflower Challenge in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Each one planted a seed and took care of their sunflower until it bloomed. Some grew higher than a house; others blossomed in a pot; everyone learned from giving a gift to the Earth! Take a look at all the giant sunflowers and smiling faces - join them by taking the challenge and planting sunflower seeds!
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12 Easy Sunflower Sprout Experiments

Children in all grades can have fun experimenting with sunflower sprouts. Here are easy, inexpensive instructions for sprouting seeds and 12 experiments to get you started. Assign an experiment to each student or divide into small groups to conduct one or more.
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Leaves, Seeds, Fruits: Background and K-6 Lessons

A terrific science activity for autumn - whether the leaves are green, red, gold or brown. There is so much to observe and learn from the trees and plants around us. With background information and lesson plans for grades K-6, you can get the whole school involved. This activity was created by Judy Chaddick, a master teacher, gardener and illustrator.
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Sunflower Seed Science Activities

Introduce science basics to your early elementary students: observing, measuring, describing, comparing, experimenting. This handout includes sunflower sprouting instructions, a sprout observation chart and basic experiments for comparing or dissecting different kinds of seed sprouts.
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Grow a Magical Sunflower House

Try this project at home or with a summer program - it’s a fun way to get kids involved with planting seeds, caring for a small garden and then discovering a magical, cool and shady playhouse to share with their friends.
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Grow a Sweet Potato Vine

A classic classroom activity - get out the magnifying loops and look closely at teeny, tiny roots and sprouts that grow to become long vines. Asking questions, predicting what happens next, counting, measuring and recording observations are science basics that are part of this simple activity.
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A Simple Celery Stalk Experiment

A few stalks of celery and food coloring in a glass of water - kids love this demonstration of how plants and even trees draw water up to their leaves. It’s also a great way to introduce plant vocabulary like ‘stem,’ ‘leaf’ or even ‘xylem.’
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Photosynthesis and Transpiration Experiments

For grades 5-6, experiments on photosynthesis and transpiration are just right - What do plants eat? Do plants breathe? How do plants take in energy? And there are million more questions after that. Included are a teacher’s background on photosynthesis and transpiration, as well as a lesson plan and 2 experiments for students.
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SUNFLOWER*S Word Scramble

How many words can your students make from the letters in ‘sunflower?’ How many sentences? How many big words? How fast can they do it? Have fun!
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Sunflower Streamers

Try this playful craft project - learn about the pattern of petals and seeds that many flowers use.
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Flower Dances and Songs

Sing a song and dance a dance to celebrate the flowers! It feels soooooo good to stretch for the sun, to wiggle in the breeze and to bloom like the most beautiful flower that anyone has ever seen! And sing 3 fun, little songs to familiar tunes.
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