Everything is coming up Sunflowers

What a way to kick start the week.  Yesterday, my family went to the valley to net our grape vines and I noticed the largest Sunflowers I have ever seen in the garden.  I asked if I may help myself to the seed heads and was given the go ahead.  What a score!  It was a moment of brilliance for sure. 

Last night I went into the school and dried the seed heads in the oven for a while at a low temperature.  Mostly I was wanting to make sure there were no creepy crawlies.  After I was certain they were bug free I set one up on a independent working station with a set of small tweezers and a bowl for collection.  I can not tell you how much fun this work is and how soothing it is to pick away at something.  This work is so popular I am kicking myself for not bring back eight seed heads.  I smell another trip to the vineyard this weekend to collect more.  The second seed head went to rest at the nature table until I noticed it was being picked at and so I put it away.  I need to make sure everyone gets to have a turn with this work.  

I simply love this work for so many reasons.  The first is that the children are getting a serious workout with their hand and tweezing which is great for the ones with a weaker pincer grip.  Secondly, we are learning about the life cycle and and the collection of seeds for the next growing cycle.  I will put some of these away to dry out and plant in our garden out front. 

I had the children empty the full seed bowl into the bowl at the art table so that we can continue to make our Sunflowers.  If I had only known I would never have bought sunflower seeds last week for this art project!