Be a seed collector Collecting seeds from plants and sowing them the following year will reinforce children's understanding of the basic lifecycle of plants. It will introduce the concept of seed dispersal, increase their observational skills and provide a stimulus for gardening.

In this article

How long will it take? What you will need

Step-by-step guide Tips and advice

Creating a seed packet should take up to an hour. Thereafter, allow 15 to 20 minutes on a regular basis, perhaps fortnightly or every three weeks.

• old A5 envelopes, one for each type of seed you want to collect
• seed-heads
• sheets of A5 paper, plain on one side

1 To make the seed envelope, follow these steps:

• Take a sheet of A5 paper and fold it in half lengthways (with the plain side outside if you are recycling used sheets)
• Fold the outside pair of long edges over together (about 1cm/0.4in), and then again
• Turn it over, so that the folded edge is underneath, but still at the top
• Fold one end of the short edges into a triangle by bringing the top edge down to the bottom
• Fold this triangle in half upwards, tucking it in under the flap as you go. This means you don't need glue to lock it together

2 Go around your garden with your children and tell them to look carefully for plants where the flowers have fallen off and seed-heads are growing.

3 When they find some, they need to decide if they look big, fat and brown. If they don't, they must leave them for a while, as they are not ripe enough to pick yet. Help them to write the name of the plant on the front of the envelope. They could draw a picture of what the plant looks like when it's flowering.

4 If they do look ripe, they can carefully pick them and put them straight into an old envelope.

5 Leave the seeds in a warm place to dry out completely.

6 When they have dried out completely, they can sort the seeds from the seed-heads. They might find some insects in there as well! Get them to put the insects back in the garden, and the empty seed-heads in the compost bin.

7 Now put your seeds in the open end of your seed packet, then repeat the fold (steps three and four) to close the packet.

8 Don't forget to help your children write the name of the seeds on the outside.

9 Keep the seeds in a cool, dry place until they want to plant them in spring.

• You will need to help with the folding of the seed packet. If you fold the paper widthways; your seed packet will finish up square!
• Aim to collect seeds from annuals. For example, poppies, nasturtiums, pot marigolds, candytuft, love-in-a-mist, poached egg flower, cornflower, morning glory and Californian poppy.