Banner image
"Grow your own Mr Potato Head"
Introduction
A new fun activity where you can create your very own Mr or Mrs Potato Head – this time with a botanical twist! Don’t they just take you straight back to childhood? What’s more, kids love to watch the buds sprout and come to life over time.
Content
Texte
How does it work?
Equipment
- An empty milk or juice carton
- A pair of tights or stockings (opaque or nude, the choice is yours)
- A large jar
- Soil
- Lentils
- A pair of scissors
- Nail polish in different colours
- Some colourful drawing pins for decoration
Using the scissors, cut a leg of the tights to around twenty centimetres.
Place the tights around the rim and push down into the jar so they can be filled.
Fill the tights with around two handfuls of lentils.
Make sure the lentils stay together at the bottom of the tights so they can neatly form the top of your new pal’s head and encourage growth.
Then fill the tights with soil, around 3 or 4 yoghurt pots’ worth, to garnish it well.
Form the tights into a ball by hand then tie at the end.
Soak the ball in water for the rest of the activity so that the soil and lentils are completely moist.
In the meantime, cut up your milk or juice bottle for some smooth pieces of plastic.
Cut out various pieces to create a face, including ears, a mouth, eyes, eyelashes, maybe a moustache...
Paint the different shapes with nail polish. Leave them to dry.
Remember to keep the eyes and teeth white!
Use drawing pins to make pupils for the eyes.
Choose some pins that are a similar colour to the pieces of your face and push them through.
The pins are for sticking elements to the future face of your new lentil-haired pal.
Take your soil ball out of the water and place it in a glass, mug or other suitable container.
Leave some water in the bottom so that the lentils can still soak it up from underneath. This will keep the soil permanently moist through capillary action.
Using the tip of the scissors, make a series of small holes just at the top of the ball.
This will encourage the lentils to grow, creating some lovely new hair for Mr or Mrs Potato Head.
Pin the various parts of the face onto the ball of soil to bring your new friend to life.
Make sure they’re always kept moist so that the lentils can germinate.
And be sure to keep them near a window so they can get plenty of light.
After a few days, the shoots will start to appear, giving Mr or Mrs Potato Head a great new haircut!
Texte
Choice of seeds
Lentils are fantastic seeds for observing rapid germination. To compare the speed of germination, you could also try using other seeds, such as grass or lawn seeds, for example. At the very least, you’ll be able to see how quickly different seeds grow, making your growing at home projects even more fun.
Texte
