- dandelion seeds on the plant or soft feathers (e.g., down feathers from broken pillow or jacket)
- glue
- plastic spoon (for mixing)
- squirt bottles with tempera paint
- white poster board or cardboard
- seed
- travel
MA Standards:
Language/L.PK.MA.6: Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, listening to books read aloud, activities, and play.
Head Start Outcomes:
Approaches to Learning/Persistence and Attentiveness: Maintains interest in a project or activity until completed.
Literacy Knowledge/Early Writing: Uses scribbles, shapes, pictures, and letters to represent objects, stories, experiences, or ideas.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
Science and Technology/Inquiry Skills 4: Record observations and share ideas through simple forms of representation such as drawings.
Traveling Seeds
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
Skill Focus: Creative Expression, Small Motor Skills, Vocabulary
If possible, do the activity outside with real dandelions; otherwise, use soft feathers as the “seeds.”
- Tell children they are going to make a “traveling seed” picture. Review with children how seeds travel.
- Demonstrate how to squirt a blob of paint on the white paper. Then squirt a small amount of glue in the paint.
- Tell children you are going to mix the glue into the paint so the “seed” will stick to the paint.
Have children work in pairs. Invite children to take their paintings outside. Have one partner hold the painting about 10 inches away from the other child (paint side facing the child who will be blowing the seeds). Then have the other child blow on the dandelion to disperse the seeds. Encourage children to watch the how seeds travel and spread out when you blow on them. Some seeds will land on the paint and stick to it, others will float. Talk about the seeds that got away as children blow.
Take It Further: You many want to extend the activity by having children paint a picture of an animal with the glue-paint to demonstrate another means of seed travel—animal fur.