Idea: Making Funny Face Pottery

(By the way, Anabel Founier has interviewed me in a new series about creative spaces. I am super flattered to have been included in this great series of hers. You can find the interview on her blog today. )

Idea:

I've been doing some container gardening on my back deck this Spring. Once I've made some more progress, I plan on posting about it: simple ideas for small outdoor spaces (Live in the city? No problem. No back yard? I have ideas).  

Anyway, the children have been helping me. And by "helping" I mean getting soil everywhere and picking all my flowers! But I must admit that I love seeing them enjoy themselves while learning about gardening.  I try to encourage them to get involved, even if that means it takes me a little longer. 

I've also been incorportating fun, kid-friendly activities to help them feel a part of the gardening process like rock painting and seed planting. Hopefully you've been inspired by some of these ideas too. I find that the simpler the project, the easier it is to accomplish when involving children. For this reason, my "gardening with children" ideas don't involve many supplies. 

On Saturday we planted some herbs and a few flowering plants. To get the girls involved, I made a funny face pot by hot-gluing* google eyes to a terra cotta pot and drawing a mouth an nose with a permanent* marker. Once the face was created, we added soil and up-potted some rye grass that my daughter had grown from seed in her class at school and brought home earlier this year.
Then, the girls drew faces on some teeny-tiny seed planting pots with the permanent marker then planted their seeds inside.

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Afterwards,

What you will need:

some potting soil

seeds or a small plant

and

*Obviously young children can't work with the hot glue, but you can get them to decide where to place the eyes and then you can do the gluing. **If you are uncomfortable with letting your children use a permanent marker, just draw the faces on your own (or have the children paint the faces) them allow them to plant. That being said, my 4 and 5 year old did just fine with the marker while I watched them color. 

Once the seeds grow in our tiny pots, our little friends will have some cool hair!

p.s. On a different note entirely, I am wishing you a nice Memorial Day with your family. We honor and remember those men and women who have died while serving our country, today. We will be thinking of you, and thanking you in our hearts as we enjoy the liberties of our life here.