Have kindergartners grow their own flower and keep a journal so they can reread notes from their experience whenever they wish. From choosing their seeds to documenting the day it sprouted and taking detailed notes of its daily progression, kindergartners will get a glimpse into the life of professional botanists by keeping a journal of growing a flower. When your kindergartners' flowers are too big for their cups, pick a spot outside to plant a garden to keep their interests all year long
Go over flowers commonly found in your state or area with kindergartners before taking them on a short expedition to find local blooms around your school. Wildflowers of the American Northeast include morning glories, black-eyed Susans, nasturtium and zinnias. In the Midwest, common flowers include blue sage, calendula, the desert marigold and forget-me-nots. The Pacific coast is home to California poppies and bluebells, sage and Queen Anne's Lace, while the south comes alive with sunflowers, daisies, clovers and a variety of cone-flowers almost year-round. Your particular climate, the time of year and the location of your school may make an outdoor expedition difficult or impossible, so an alternative could be having kindergartners cut out familiar or local flower species from old gardening magazines.
Sunflowers range in size from small blooms no bigger than daisies to giant sunflowers that feature mammoth blossoms as big as a face. You can explain this in further detail along with other fun facts about sunflowers in this simple lesson. Have kindergartners make replicas of giant sunflowers using cardboard paper towel tubes for the stem, paper plates for the flower, and colored construction paper and tissue paper to make the leaves and petals. Kindergartners can munch on sunflower seeds, a tasty snack chock full of vitamins and minerals, as they glue them in the center of the paper plate, pointed ends up, to make the sunflower's face.
Show kindergartners how colors are abundantly used in nature by having them color printouts of familiar flowers with the colors they see in rainbows. Colored pictures of red roses, orange Gerber daisies, yellow sunflowers, green carnations, blue hydrangeas, indigo flowers and violets can be cut out and pinned to a wall in an arc to make a rainbow of blossoms in your kindergarten classroom.