Here's a simple activity which toddlers can make with very little adult intervention, & one which makes a great homegrown gift. As you know we've been growing lavender & have now cut it back for the winter. We used a few of the flowers for our scented seed play dough, but we kept some back for this activity. We left the lavender flowers to dry for a couple of days & removed them from the stem. (The lavender we used was culinary English lavender which we knew was free from pesticides. If you don't grow culinary lavender, you can buy it fairly cheaply online )
To make lavender sugar you'll need:
1 kg of Fairtrade organic caster sugar
4 tsp of homegrown lavender flowers
Jars
Simply sprinkle the flowers into a bowl of sugar & gently stir together.
We decanted our sugar into small sterilized jars & decorated with some purple material & silver coloured string. Alternatively you could add it to clean cellophane bags.
Lavender has long been used for its healing, & culinary properties & offers a sweet delicate flavour. This lavender sugar makes a great alternative to vanilla sugar, & can be used as a substitute to plain sugar in cake / biscuit / scone/ meringue / ice-cream recipes, or sprinkled over shortbread, fruit, or even added to tea!
During this activity Minnie was able to explore textures, plants (herbs) & nature, & discover new flavours, ingredients & organic food. We've recently been discussing harvest, & so to collect our own homegrown herbs & make something simple like this to share with others, has been a great extension of the topic.