This is another activity that can be accomplished by almost any age group. I’ve done this activity with four year olds, and seventeen year old, and they all love it. Clear glass jars with lids, shells, bottle caps, small doll cups, half egg shells, etc.
Have the child assemble the container (shell, cap, cup) and a small assortment of the dried flowers, cut very short. Mix the plaster of paris to the consistency of thick batter – add color if desired. Mix small amounts at a time, because it hardens either too slowly or too quickly. Glop enough plaster into the container to fill it. The kid then can stick the stems of the little flowers into the plaster, which will harden and be heavy enough to not tip over. I like to get a packet of bug and bird sequins and glue a little, shiny critter onto one of the branches.
For the jars, glue a bottle cap to the center of the inner lid. Proceed as above, being careful to now make the sprigs of flowers taller than the jar. When the little garden is done, screw on the jar and it will look like a small terrarium. In my experience, kids do these very quickly, and like to make lots and lots of them, so have a lot of little containers on hand. When I run out of containers, we’re forced to get creative and it’s fun to see what the kids come up with to use for their gardens. If they make really tiny gardens in very small shells, you can stick a piece of velcro (the prickly side out) to the bottom of the shell and it will adhere to hair.
These are very, very cute.