In August I did my tradition trip to the sunflower farm and picked some sunflowers. This trip, along with children's interest in what we have been growing outside as well as in their own family gardens, inspired me to bring them in here for them to explore.
The children's current love of drawing inspired me to set them up as a still life on the art table for use as their inspiration. The table had three sunflowers in a vase and one sunflower laying down beside the vase for them to inspect, and create with crayons, markers, pencil crayons and white paper.
The children talked about what colours and shapes they saw: green, yellow, orange, brown and circles were prominent. As the children drew using the sunflowers as inspiration, their own uniqueness and creativity was expressed.
Kinga drew ameba like shapes, that she has been exploring for a while now in her drawings, on her paper first and then filled them in. She told me that they were sunflowers and a very large bee in the middle.
Brody drew circled of orange and brown with lines coming out of them and a smiling face in the middle of the circles. Frankie used the most colour in her drawing, starting with a circle and then filling in around it. Alex drew, "a funny sunflower with a smile," and a sky and scene around it.
I left the sunflowers in the vase in the classroom for a few days to see what else they might inspire. A few days later I took the sunflowers outside and placed them on a table, this time without the vase, hoping they would be more inviting for exploration. The children picked them up and began feeling them.
"The middle feels soft but also prickly," said Leena as she ran her fingers over the middle.
"The petals feel smooth," said Frankie, "and the stem is hard."
Then Otis asked, "Can we pull the petals off?" I told him "yes", to go ahead and explore the flowers and pull them apart. Then the real excitement began as the children began to put apart the sunflowers. Most began with the petals, with Leena, Frankie and Finley pulling them off one by one. Then they got to the center and began to pull apart that as well.
"What's the yellow stuff that is coming off on my sweatshirt?" asked Otis.
"That’s called pollen," I told him.
Alex then told us that, "the bees take the pollen to their homes to make the honey." Nina then found one sunflower center with black things inside. "What is this?" she asked. I told the children, as they all gathered around to see, that these are the sunflower seeds.
"Seeds are what grows the plants," said Alex. "Right," I confirmed, "these are sunflower seeds. The seeds that come from a sunflower also, when planted, make the sunflowers themselves."
"Why doesn’t my sunflower have seeds?" asked Otis. "That is because your sunflower is too young and hasn't grown its seeds yet." The children continued until all of the petals were off the centers, the centers were dissected, and the leaves were pulled off the stems.
This exploration of sunflowers developed the children's sense of wonder and creativity as well as their scientific ability to ask questions in search for answers.
