Soak sunflower seeds in a jar of water overnight. Rinse and drain, removing loose sunflower hulls. Fill a garden tray with soil, lay the seeds over the soil and place damp paper towels over them. Water the dry paper towels once or twice a day. When sprouts begin coming through, remove the paper towels. Put the tray in direct sunlight. Harvest the sunflower greens on the seventh or eighth day before the second set of green leaves develops. Talk about the roots, stems and leaves with the child. Eat the salad greens with other vegetables and dressing. Refrigerate remaining greens for up to two weeks.
It's never too soon to teach a child about recycling. Before snack or lunchtime, explain basic recycling practices. Show children where recycling receptacles are located and explain what goes inside them. For example, paper plates and napkins go into the paper receptacle, and straws and plastic containers go in the plastics receptacle. Have snacks or lunch. After the food has been eaten, review the recycling procedures and how to dispose of lunch leftovers. Make sure each child places various materials in the proper location.
Create two poster boards with Velcro attached to the boards. Label them "Animals that Fly" and "Animals that Swim." Find pictures of animals that can be laminated, and put Velcro on the back of the image. Print word descriptors for each animal, laminate the word and attach Velcro to the back. Have the children identify each animal and the word it goes with. Then, identify whether the animal can fly or swim. Talk about the characteristics of each animal as you place the words and images in their corresponding categories on the poster board.
Gather eight to 10 kinds of food that are either very fragrant or very tasty, and put them into containers with lids. Talk about smell and taste, what tastes good and bad and how you identify what you like to eat. Using a blindfold, have the child either smell the contents of each container and guess what the contents are or have the child taste each food.