Plant Part Costume Tutorial

Every other week, my amazing Head Start students in Germantown come to the Wyck Historic House and Garden to learn about plants, insects, animals, farming, healthy food, etc. This week they continued learning about plant parts and the healthy foods they produce.

We used the art in Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert to illustrate what plants we eat and discussed which parts of the plant they were from. Then we observed plants and signs of spring, played a matching game, sang our plant part rhyme, danced as a fruit bowl and even dressed up like a plant.

The plant part costume was something the kids loved when learning about plants at The Schuylkill Center’s Farm Camp, so with some felt and a few dollar store items, I had a costume of my own in no time at all.

Plant Part Costume

Materials:

¥   1 Sheet Brown Felt

¥   1 Yards Green Felt or Fabric

¥   Pipe Cleaners

¥   Fabric Garden Gloves

¥   Small Garden Hat or Basket

¥   Decorative Flowers or Fruit

¥   Hot Glue Gun

¥   Needle & Thread or Fabric Glue

¥   Velcro

Instructions

Roots:

1.     Cut two 2-inch wide strips of brown or green felt.

2.     Cut small slits in the middle of the strips about a ¼ inch apart for as many pipe cleaners (roots) you wish to use. I used six.

3.     Insert pipe cleaners, twisting top of cleaner around felt to secure it.   

4.     Add Velcro to ends of strips.

Stem:

1.     Using an apron as a pattern

2.     Cut an apron shape from the yard of green felt or fabric

3.     Sew on ties or cut with pattern

Leaves:

  1.     Lay gloves on top of the green felt or fabric.

  2.     Cut two leaf shapes from felt or fabric large enough to hide the gloves

  3.     Fabric glue or hand-stitch the bottom of the leaf to the bottoms of the gloves

  4.     Use puffy paint, markers, or other paint to create veins on leaves

Flowers/Fruit:

  1.     Pull the flowers and leaves off of a bouquet of decorative flowers

  2.     Hot glue the flowers and leaves to a small hat or basket

Suggestions & Additions:

Costume Additions

One Whole Flower- Create one flower using colored cotton balls or puff balls and felt petals (color and shape of choice)

Add Literacy Labels- Velcro, sew or permanent marker labels to each part of the costume

Add Fruit- Create one flower using colored cotton balls or puff balls and felt petals to create an apple blossom and add a faux apple (or any common fruit and flower)

Books

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carl

This book is a classic that the kids know and it can be used to discuss healthy foods v. junk foods.

Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert

This book has bright and beautiful illustrations of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.