Discover what flowers do

How long will it take?

This should take about 40 minutes, depending on how much information you give them at the same time.

What you will need

• plain postcard
• pencil and colouring crayons
• double-sided sticky tape
• a flower
• tweezers

Step-by-step guide

1 Ask your children to write their name on one side of the card, and draw a careful picture of the flower they have chosen.

2 Then they need to stick a length of double-sided sticky tape across the other side of the card and remove the protective covering.

3 They must take the flower apart very carefully. Tell them to start with the petals, pulling very gently and trying not to tear them. As they pull them off, they can put them gently on to the sticky tape.

4 Next, they can stick on the green bits that were outside the petals. These are the sepals.

5 They can use the tweezers to pull off the smaller pieces in the middle. Tell your children to look carefully, and they might find two different sorts! There should be stamens with pollen, and a pistil with a sticky end.

6 Ask them to look at what they've stuck on their card. Can they count how many petals there are? Did they find lots of stamens - or were there too many to count?

Tips and advice

• Flowers are not very strong - encourage your children to work very gently!
• There are many different sorts of flowers and they don't all fit into the simple flower structure by any means. Indeed, plants are classified into different groups by the structure of their flowers. Try one from this list as a starter: tulip, crocus, primula, pansy, lily, geranium, mallow, poppy, dog rose, clematis, nasturtium, buttercup, St John's wort, and crocosmia.
• You may like to repeat this activity on several different occasions; use the simple structure several times before branching out on to others - unless your children's curiosity takes you in other directions first.