It’s summer time finally, and our kids are glad to be out of school, but it won’t be long before they are bored and itching for some fun. I’ve put together a boredom buster that you can use at home, in 4-H club meetings, 4-H school enrichment programs, or in 4-H day camps based on this great picture I found. Creating a grass hand print is very simple and doesn’t require any special equipment:
Materials
- Container to plant in (Make sure that the top of the container is large enough for your hand print. Pie plates work great and are super cheap!)
- Potting soil
- Grass seed
- Writing utensil (pen, pencil, marker, etc)
- Scissors (preferable safety scissors)
- Construction paper or card stock
- Water
Instructions
- Using your writing utensil, trace your hand on a piece of construction paper.
- Use the scissors to cut out the image you just traced of your hand.
- Fill your container nearly to the top with potting soil. You will want to leave at least an inch of space.
- Immerse your paper hand print in the water.
- Remove your paper hand print from the water quickly and lay it out on a flat surface.
- Sprinkle grass seed over the paper hand print until it is covered.
- Lay the seed covered hand print on top of the dirt in the container and cover it with about a quarter inch of soil.
- Make sure that the pot receives adequate sunlight and water as directed on the seed packet your seeds came from. In a few days you should have a grassy hand print!
So that’s it! This is a great introductory lesson to gardening or plant sciences, and it’s just plain cool. For more information on 4-H gardening projects, resources, and competitions visit: http://florida4h.org/programs/Plantscience.pdf
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