Windowsill Garden Part 2

After your home made flower pots are dry you can continue on to this step. Haven't made your flower pots yet? Read back to HERE to see how to make one.

For this project we are going to be filling the pot and planting the seeds. Very good project to tie in science and math with the little ones!

Materials Needed:

Finished Flower Pots from THIS project

Potting Soil

Seeds (I chose tomatos)

Water

First, fill the containers with the potting soil following the directions on the bag. Some brands may call for you to mix the soil with water. Make sure to keep the soil loose and not have it packed in tightly so that the roots will be able to grow.

Have your child help you make a few holes in the soil using their fingers. Be sure to space the holes by the amount suggested on the seed packaging. Next let the child count out the correct amount of seeds and have her place one seed in each hole.

Lightly cover the dirt. Do not push the dirt down, you will need it loose so that the seed will be able to push it's way through it. 

Water and place the pots on a sunny windowsill.

That's it! Your done! For older kids, have them talk about what they see happening to the plants every couple of days for a science lesson for them too!

Cost of Project: $3.19

Potting Soil at CVS- $2.99

1 Seed Packet from Walmart- $0.20

Flower Pots- Free

Plus, you will be getting vegetables in a few weeks from this project so that is an added bonus!

Windowsill Garden Part 1

S and I decided to try to make our own windowsill garden this year. For a few days, I collected some plastic containers to use as the pot of the plants. It saved me some money so that I didn't have to pay for a bunch of plant pots. Plus, the containers are all plastic so that if S accidentally knocks one over she won't hurt herself on shards of ceramic. The first thing we did was decorate the recycled containers to make them look a little cuter sitting on our sill.


Materials Needed:
Recycled Containers
Glue
Water
Paintbrush
Colorful Tissue Papers
Wax Paper (not shown)

Make sure you have all of the supplies ready before you get your child at the table to help!

Add a little water to the glue and mix well. This will make the glue more see through so you will see your paper better. Cut the tissue paper into squares. For toddlers, I would recommend larger squares as it will take them a long time with smaller squares. (Believe me, we started off with small squares and I quickly learned my mistake!)

Now your child can join in. Have him or her paint sections of the container with glue and then add a tissue paper square on top.

Keep layering the tissue paper until you can no longer see the writing on the container. Add different colors on top of each other for a really cool stained glass look!

Keep Going! Make sure you leave the bottom of the container blank. You don't want the glue and paper to stick to your windowsill!

Ta Da! The finished product

Put the pots bottom up on a sheet of wax paper to dry. Plan for it to dry for at least 24 hours before adding potting soil so that it doesn't stick to the tissue paper.

Cost of Project: FREE!
I recycled the containers. I already had brushes, glue and wax paper. For the tissue paper, I used some that I had been saving from a gift bag.