DLTK's Holiday Crafts for Kids
Grass Seed Cup Craft

This is an adorable grass seed craft made out of a disposable cup that lets kids grow and care for their very own grass!  This craft is suitable for a spring theme or just for fun!

Materials:

• disposable cup (we used plastic)
• paint (acrylic paint is best for this project)
• paintbrush
• marker,
• dirt,
• grass seed
• Optional: wiggly eyes

Note:   Acrylic paint is (pretty much) not washable so young children should wear old clothes and do their work away from carpet and other household fabrics.  If you catch it while it's wet, you can get usually get it out but it dries very quickly so you have to be fast.  Tempra paints are more washable, but can still stain depending on the colors you're using (I struggle getting blacks and reds out of light color fabrics).  When tempra paints get wet (from watering the seed) it runs and makes quite a mess.

Instructions:

• Buy grass seed.
• Paint the outside front half of the cup with whatever color you want.  I chose purple because I wanted a bright colour that would contrast with the grass.  The unpainted back half of the cup can be used to view the roots of the grass.
• Glue wiggly eyes or draw eyes onto the painted side of the cup and draw a mouth as well.  This makes a face for your grass seed cup.
• Plant the grass seed, this can be a messy process so make sure you do this on newspaper or outside:
   
  • Fill the cup with dirt so that it is about a centimeter from the top.
  • Sprinkle the grass seed over the dirt in all of the cups.  Sprinkle a fair amount because not all of it will grow.
  • Sprinkle a little bit more dirt over the grass seed.
• Now wait and watch your grass grow!
• It is important to water the grass every day. Don't use too much water or else you will overwater the grass.  I used a syringe to water my grass so that I could have better control over the amount of water that the grass got.  If you use a plastic cup like me you might not have to water it every day because the plastic contains the water quite efficiently.
• Once your grass starts getting really long you can give it a "haricut" so it will start growing more again.  This is also a messy process so do it outside or place newspaper under the area you are doing it.
     

Printable version of these instructions