Dandelion mania

How to lure children outside? Every spring, nature offers tons of dandelion material for loose parts play and learning. Just go outside and be inspired.

DANDELION WORLD: Places full of dandelions are great for stopping, calming down and focusing attention on tiny worlds. You have the opportunity to observe bees, ants, flies and other insects up close. Enjoy the time together or alone.

MAGIC WAND: For a walk we recommend taking a string and finding a suitable stick. During the trip, make a magic wand and tie it full of magical natural materials including dandelions. If you don’t have any string, it doesn’t matter, just tie everything up using a long dandelion stem.

DANDELION HORN: Simple, fast and a lot of fun. Pluck a suitably thick dandelion. Tear one end into four parts, press the other end with your lips and blow. It takes a bit of testing, but it works.

WATCHES: Time passes differently outside so it’s a good idea to make a watch that will keep track of the time for you.

LIFE CYCLE: Dandelions offer a great opportunity to show a flower’s life cycle. You can make it in a straight line or a (almost complete) circle.

COLOURING BOOKS: Pack crayons, paper, cardboard and scissors. You can play little explorers who explore the shapes and colours of flowers. Cut a dandelion flower and leaf in half, paint the outlines to match the other half and then take care to use the right colour shades.

PAINTING: Easy, beautiful, suitable where there are plenty of flowers.

DANDELION WRITING: It is useful to try it when the dandelions have already bloomed so it does not matter if you use up so many stems. Collect suitable sizes and shapes and then just write messages or prepare puzzles.

COUNTING WITH DANDELIONS: It’s playful and you need only count for a moment or two. The youngest children can count to 5 while the older ones can count higher. Some of our children even managed to portray infinity. You can even prepare equations for counting with and without numbers.

THE STRONGEST DANDELION: During a walk, look for the bravest and strongest dandelion. The one who managed to grow up in the least likely of places.

WHAT WEIGHS MORE: What is heavier, a dandelion in bloom or one that is already fluffy? Try making a simple string and stick scale. Little explorers will soon discover that the place where they hang the dandelion also matters.

DANDELION ZOO: Bring your animals outside and prepare a farm or zoo full of dandelion joy for them. It’s great to see what the children come up with. Who would have thought of making a snow enclosure for polar bears out of fluff?

LEGO AMONG THE DANDELIONS: Make a great jungle full of traps and adventures. You just have to be careful not to lose any of the small pieces.

DANDELION MESSAGES: Wherever there are plenty of flowers you can try a little land art during a walk or when out in the garden. Choose places where the dandelion flowers would light up the space. Additionally, when they bloom, the seeds will be carried by the wind a little further than they would have originally.

A TRAIN FULL OF DANDELIONS: Some children are attracted by animals while others by machinery. All you have to do is pack a train and possibly a few tracks and head outside. Load the train with what you need and set off. In our case, the dandelion load was dumped after a while and replaced with sand, clay and pebbles which probably looked more like a real load.

OCTOPUS: The cut ends of the dandelion stems curl beautifully and you have an octopus ready to play.

FAIRY RESCUE: Our girls enjoyed catching fluff. They imagined themselves to be fairies and protect the falling seeds from bad luck. They found suitable places for them and wrapped them in a protective charm. Of course fairies have to be something special so they decorated their hair. Each in their own style. We recommend combing it out while outside, it’s easy.

CHOPPING HEADS OFF: For those who don’t like fairy games, there’s a fighting one. At a place where dandelions have already bloomed a lot, you can equip yourself with a suitable tool/weapon and head out to chop off the heads of your enemies.

HEADBAND: Long dandelions (both flowers and fluff) can be made into fragile crowns and headbands. The flowers can also decorate hair.

TATTOOS: Older explorers will enjoy testing how long it takes dandelion milk to turn brown on their skin and seeing how long it stays there.

WREATHS IN WATER

RINGS

YELLOW MAKE-UP: If you don’t mind dandelion pollen, you can try painting it on your skin.

MICROPHONE: When the hairstyle, make-up, decorations are all set, it’s time for a performance using a dandelion microphone. Our girls also added an unconventional camera.

SOMETHING FOR THE TONGUE: Taste the flowers on their own or mixed with fruit. Young leaves are also good but you need to choose carefully as they soon become bitter.

DANDELION MENU: Children come up with wonderful recipes. That evening we enjoyed dandelion soup, pasta with patties and salad, and dessert followed by some really light foamy coffee made from dandelion fluff.

BAKED DANDELIONS: When we baked patties from rye flour, the children thought of trying how a baked dandelion tastes. Nothing too special by itself but when they drizzled it with honey, it was said to have had an interesting taste.

IT’S SNOWING: There are places where dandelions are really plentiful and when the fluff is ready to fly and the wind blows, it’s like it’s snowing. Our children were inspired by this, so they went on a hunt for snowflakes in May, even though it wasn’t blowing at times.

NATURAL BUBBLES: Carefully pluck a few heads of dandelion fluff at a time and then blow (downwind) while others can try to catch as many flying parachutes as possible.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE DANDELION GAMES? Email us at team@lessonsingrass.com. WE WISH YOU MANY IDEAS AND JOY WITH YELLOW AND/OR WHITE PLAYMATES.