Real Easter Basket Grass

Three separate families in our service area mentioned they would be growing real grass for their Easter baskets. What a great idea! We decided to give it a try and share how it went here with you.

This is a rich project with many learning opportunities for children. Children experience the growing process with a plant which matures rapidly- 7 days. ****This means you will need to plant about 7-12 days before you go egg hunting. Children can do most of the work on their own allowing them to experience the satisfaction of a job well done. Additionally, this project provides an opportunity to strengthen hands -using a spray bottle several times a day. By using an upcycled growing tray and skipping the plastic Easter grass, children can learn to be good stewards of their environment.

We purchased cat grass for our basket. Cat grass is a cereal grass just like oat grass or wheat grass. Humans can actually eat it and cats love it! It is spring and if you have some regular lawn seed around, that will work well too.

We purchased a clear plastic pot tray which fit in the bottom of our basket.
However, you could easily search your recyclables bin for a container to fit the bottom of your basket.

Have children scoop soil and fill their container 3/4 of the way to the top with soil. Then have them spread the seeds over the entire surface of the soil and gently cover all of the seeds with soil. Handling small seeds requires a pincer grasp- making this activity a great opportunity to work on fine motor skills needed for writing.

Using a spray bottle, mist the top of the soil and keep moist throughout the day with more misting.
Spray bottles are a great way kids can help build hand strength needed for writing.

The seedlings began to emerge on day 4.

Day 4

Day 5, they really took off!

Day 7

The grass was long and full after 1 week. On day 10 we filled ours with eggs. It wasn't Easter yet so we used some beautiful blue and brown farm eggs to showcase our basket grass.

Looks like someone spotted the cat grass!
Bonus...a treat for your cat when you are finished hunting eggs

One of our local families grew their grass directly in their Easter Basket Bucket!
They used grass seed leftover from last season and it grew beautifully.