Planting The Sunflower House is one of many fun gardening activities for grandparents and their grandchildren

The Sunflower House Activities Update for Grandparents and Their Grandchildren

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Daily Living Made Easier

Sunflower Houses - full of delightful senior and kid gardening info and activities for grandparents and their grandchildren

Garden activities for grandparents and their grandchildren are fun, aren’t they? They’re not always easy or convenient, especially for those of us in the Sandwich Generation as we deal with the issues of caring for elderly parents as well! Not to mention any of us, who shall remain nameless, hmmmm, with a 5th metatarsal fracture! With all of that going on, I was beginning to think we’d never get our special summer project –The Sunflower House – going. But we DID!

Planting The Sunflower House is one of many fun gardening activities for grandparents and their grandchildren

I had gone over the day before to babysit, complete with trowel, but the weather was too stormy, my foot was too sore, and they had too much schoolwork, so we didn’t try to plant seeds. The next day, I went over again, unexpectedly and at the last minute. I forgot to make sure I had the trowel, but we finished the schoolwork early and the rainstorm that was predicted had disappeared. I thought, “Ah ha."

“Would you boys liked to plant sunflower seeds icon to grow the Sunflower House we read about?” I asked. All three enthusiastically said YES! The only problem was the trowel, which my middle grand-twin solved by discovering I had left it behind the day before. Hooray! Out we trooped.

 

grand big-bro enjoyed gardening activities for grandparents and their grandchildren

After walking around the yard to find just the right spot, we picked a place with minimal doggy visits, maximum sun, and only semi-hard dirt. Sharing the trowel, each boy dug down an inch and dropped in a seed. With the dirt harder than they thought, one, who was worn out from soccer, quit after three holes. The other two stuck with me for about five holes. Then grandma helped with the rest.  You should have seen us out there, them in their  flip flops or bare feet and me in my tennis shoe on one foot and fracture boot on the other.

The Grand-Twins had fun working on the Sunflower House project as well

I’m not going to tell you it’s the best garden in the world. With slightly-tired grandkids and a sore foot, it is a bit crookedy and not well weeded. We did, however, mark off the garden with twigs and string, and what I thought at first was an uber-too-tiny Sunflower House should actually turn out quite nice. They had fun, I had fun, and hopefully we'll all have fun with it this summer. We also had a nice time practicing the last of their Awana Bible verses:

…The Son of Man must be lifted up. That everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. John 3:14-15

Not only that, my senior mom – who is the real gardening expert around here – and I found a nice spot at our house for “the grandma version” of the Sunflower House, complete with soft dirt. So, hopefully, we’ll have a set at each house AND send seeds to my long distance grandkids so they can have a west coast version. Then we can all have fun talking Sunflowers and Sunflower houses all summer long. Talk about fun ways for grandparents to stay in touch and close to grandchildren when living far away!

A fun long-distance grandparenting project can be sending seeds so those grandkids can plant and play in the Sunflower House as well

All in all, a good time was had by all, fun gardening activities for grandparents and grandchildren, near and far, took place and will keep taking place, and lots of special family memories were made, many of which we photographed to share with my senior mom and you.  Definitely a great day for this Sandwich Generation granny nanny and her grandkiddies. Are you going to give the Sunflower House a try this summer? Or do you have other fun gardening activities planned for grandparents and grandchildren? We'd love to hear about them. 🙂

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Comments

  1. The Sunflower House Activities Update for Grandparents and Their Grandchildren via SandwichINK.com http://tinyurl.com/23frp7p

  2. The Sunflower House Activities Update for Grandparents and Their …: Fun Gardening activities for grandparents an… http://bit.ly/9OHyYD

  3. Looking for a fun outdoor activity to do with your kids or grandkids? @SandwichINK has a great idea! #TMT http://bit.ly/9HXnut

    • Kristen
    • May 18, 2010

    Activities to do with your kiddos! @SandwichINK digs up the dirt to plant more than a seed. http://bit.ly/bs8Gk1 #TMT

    • Melinda
    • May 18, 2010

    What a great idea! Your grandchildren will remember that special memory for a very long time. And I’m sure you’ll have some great times this summer watching your garden grow! You always have such great ideas …

    Tweeting this out as part of Tweet Me Tuesday! ;0)

    • Kristen
    • May 18, 2010

    I can just picture y’all out there…;-) It sounds like despite any problems y’all made some lasting memories…and that my friend is what counts! I’m so blessed to ‘know’ you. ;-D

    Tweeting it out for Tweet Me Tuesday!!

    • Kristen
    • May 18, 2010

    Activities to do with your kiddos! @SandwichINK digs up the dirt to plant more than a seed. http://bit.ly/bs8Gk1 #TMT

    • handshouseheart
    • May 18, 2010

    Activities to do with your kiddos! @SandwichINK digs up the dirt to plant more than a seed. http://bit.ly/bs8Gk1 #TMT

    • Julie Leischner
    • May 18, 2010

    Hi there! Thanks for the RT, by the way! I love this posting! WE planted some flowers by seed indoors a few weeks ago. The sunflowers are amazingly shooting up. I live in WI. When should I put them in the ground?

    • Aunt Linda
    • May 18, 2010

    Sunflower houses sound like such fun! I’ve been collecting info on them in the hopes of growing them with the grandkids some day. Here are a few ideas I’ve saved:
    1.Once the sunflowers have reached full height, bend them to the middle and tie them to the opposite sunflowers, creating a roof.
    2. Plant a vine like sugar snap peas or sweet peas between them and they will twine up the sunflower stalks.
    3. Or plant hollyhocks between them for color.
    4. Or plant a few corn plants between them. The corn repels the Carpophilus beetles from the sunflowers, and the sunflowers protect the corn from army worms. Planting popping corn is especially fun.

    I hope to hear more about your sunflowers houses as they mature.

  4. Hi Linda, GREAT tips, thank you so much! I’m praying they will grow, that’s for sure! I’m planting more at my house too, when the weather re-perks. Hopefully we’ll get a good crop at both houses. 🙂 🙂 🙂

  5. Looking for a fun outdoor activity to do with your kids or grandkids? @SandwichINK has a great idea! #TMT http://bit.ly/9HXnut

  6. WOW, Julie, – very cool. A very interesting site, OldFashionedLiving, has a great post on this as well. In it, she wrote, “*Be sure to plant after the last frost in your area. *The seeds should be 1 inch deep and 6 inches apart when planted.” You can read the whole article at Anyone Can Grow Sunflowers! (Yay – that means even this black-thumbed gardener! 🙂 )

    Victory Seeds as the last frost dates for all the states, including Wisconsin which is currently showing 8 cities with dates ranging from Mid-May to Mid-June, so I’ll let you look for your city to be safe 🙂

    Keep us posted on how yours do 🙂

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