Seed Extraction and Lavendar Pouches

This is a great gift for holidays or Mother's Day and ties into lessons about how flowers make seeds! 

The bud or calyx of the lavender is the fragrant part of the flower and holds a seed inside of it. It's fun to find the seeds and save the fragrant buds for sachets.

Start with lavender stalks that have been cut at least 3 days prior to use and ideally longer so the buds are nice and dry. It's really best to dry them upside down- for fragrance it's best to pick them before the buds are done blooming but for seeds you want them to be done blooming, most of my stalks are somewhere in the middle and smell great and had a few seeds in them. 

 Place about 4 lavender stalks on a white piece of paper at each student's desk. For seed collection have a smaller piece of paper (one fourth of a larger piece of paper) next to it.



Have kids gently roll the lavender spikes between their fingers to separate the buds from the stalks and petals.




Have them pull out the bud out of the petal.



Place the buds in a pile.

Keep the petals and stalks in a separate pile. Tell kids not to blow on their papers or else pieces of the flower will fly around! Also it is not uncommon to see little brown bugs come out of the lavender- prepare the kids for this event! They are harmless.





Have kids look for little seeds that will fall out of the buds as they are rolled and moved around.



The seeds are very small and hard- kids can look over their paper with a magnifying glass to find them.

Fold the other smaller white paper in half and place any seeds in the paper.

The paper can be folded into a little seed packet to save for planting (lavender seeds grow very slowly and are best germinated inside in water first).



Place all the lavender buds into sachets with about 1/4c. rice  (long grain jasmine is pretty but any rice works- brown rice is pictured here) and rosemary cut or torn in small pieces. Kids can enjoy the beautiful scent!




Materials:
2 pieces of white paper- 1 small (1/4 size) and one regular
Scissors to cut rosemary into pieces
Magnifying glasses to look for seeds on the white paper
1/4 c. rice /kid (about 6+c total for a class)
Dried Lavendar Stalks (Pick these from any lavender bushes- I have tons if you need some!)
Rosemary Stalks (Bushes near Brick Patio)
Sachets