Picking sunflowers is a beautiful activity to mark the end of summer. It is also full of wonderful sensory experiences for toddlers: they can squelch in the mud, hear the buzzing bees, take in the scent of damp earth, and touch the huge textured leaves and rough spiky stalks. As they squeeze between the rows of towering flowers the stalks and leaves brush along their whole bodies and dewdrops spill onto their clothes.
These photos are from when Henry was two and Oliver four and we visited a local flower field just around the corner from our apartment. Little places like this dot the countryside and I love that it does not have to be a big outing. We can pick a few flowers, drop the money in the box, and head back home again.
The fields usually provide paring knives to cut the flowers but the stems of sunflowers are thick and strong and quite tough for kids to cut themselves. Oliver managed to cut one with help holding the stalk. Henry needed help hand over hand. I would recommend bringing a pair of secateurs along and having the toddler choose the flower but the adult cut it.
Back at home we had better luck trimming the flowers using a small hand saw. This was something even Henry could manage himself.
