 Click
here to see that it is much more than just a craft activity.
When will the flowers be ready to use? A pressed
flower held by its stem will stand upright if it is completely dry. How
long it takes depends on the weather (damp/dry) and the thickness of your
flower. We press the flowers in the fall and leave them in the phone
books until January. It's like a treasure hunt searching for the little
gems of summer hidding in between the pages on a dreary Cincinnati winter
day.We
started pressing flowers the first fall. The telephone company
delivered left over phone books from one of our smaller communities so
each child could have her own. We found the for first graders, it's
just too complicated to have them pick their own flowers. So volunteers
pick them ahead of time.
We
pre-pick some of the flowers for the second graders. We show
them the ones we have picked and why. We also show them which flowers
are not good for pressing and why. After they press 5-10 flowers
and leaves from the ones we precut, they go into the gardens and select
5-6 more.
 By the third grade, the students have had
two years experience with the process of pressing flowers and leaves and
can progress to creating a botanical
record
of the plants on the school grounds.
|
Free
coffee for garden volunteers.