At Home with Bounty

Use simple crafts as a teaching tool. Amaze your toddler by transforming seeds into plants. First, decorate a flowerpot; then, wait for the plant's "hair" to grow. Later, the child can style and even trim the grassy hair of his own potted plant. Adult supervision required.

What You'll Need:

• A small plastic flowerpot
• Potting soil
• Grass seed
• Felt circles
• Craft googly eyes
• Craft glue
• Hair ribbons
• Hair barrettes
• A pair of safety scissors
• Bounty paper towels for cleanup

Instructions:

1. Give the child one small plastic flowerpot to decorate. Explain that this is the plant's face. Do not fill the pot with potting soil yet.
2. Use felt circles and craft glue to create a face on the exterior of the pot. Help the child design the face by using large felt circles for each eye and smaller craft googly eyes in the center of each circle.
3. Let the child use safety scissors to cut one large felt circle in half. Use this as the mouth. Another smaller circle can serve as the nose for the hairy plant project. All felt pieces can be glued directly onto the pot.
4. Now, an adult can pour potting soil into the small plastic flowerpot. Next, let the child poke several grass seeds 1/4-inch deep into the soil.
5. Place the decorated pot on a windowsill. With help of an adult, the child can water the plant once a day. Within two weeks, the face will begin to grow green hair. Simple crafts such as growing plants help children get interested in nature and learn how things grow.
6. Once the grass grows a few inches long, let the toddler decorate the plant's hair with child-size hair ribbons or hair barrettes. When the hair gets too long, use safety scissors to trim the plant. Enjoy!