Cress Heads are such a CLASSIC Spring activity for kids – they are quick, easy and so so fun. Oh and they are quite inexpensive too!!! This is something you can do year in year out and kids will never tire of making their own Cress Head characters. In fact… you could have a competition each year and encourage the kids to come up with new weird and wonderful Cress Head designs.
These How to Grow Sprout Heads were first published in February 2014 and have been updated and republished for your convenience!
So… to make cress heads, you will need:
- a packet of cress (you can get them here US/ UK) (Affiliate links)
- some egg shells
- cotton wool
- some water
How to make Cress Heads:
We have a super cute and quick video for you to watch to towards the end of the post! Do take a look!
1) We have a birthday in the family at this time of year, so whilst baking birthday cakes, I carefully crack our eggs, so they are as “whole as possible”. You could of course carefully clean our your soft boiled breakfast egg too or save your eggs from your scrambled eggs to make these easy cress heads! I managed to collect 9.
2) Get the kids to decorate their egg shells. Encourage them to go crazy and have fun! We used marker pens for this. I love that Pip Squeak added a “beard” and moustache to hers and that Red Ted thought of adding rosy cheeks! They made four each and I made a sneaky one at the end too.
3) Stuff with cotton wool. We added 2 balls per egg. But maybe should have added a third.
4) Sprinkle your seeds and add a little water.
5) Place in a sunny place and watch.
We must have some special FAST GROWING cress… as in less than a day, we could see our seeds “cracking open”! Quite amazing how quickly they grew!
This literally took four days…
Watch our Cress Head DIY video:
Over to you… give me your best CAPTION!!! Says the egg to the egg……
And here is a week or so later.. yummy on an egg mayo sandwich or peanut butter sandwich!!!
Turn this into a S.T.E.M. activity by exploring how sunlight influences the growth of the cress!
More fun Spring Activities for Preschoolers here:
Liz Burton says
Love these! We used to do these all the time as kids!
“You’re hair is cracking me up” 😀
Louisa Addison-Allan says
“I egg-spect great things from you son”
Red Ted Art says
Ha love that!! Louisa!
mary says
Where can I buy cress seeds? It looks like chia pet seeds. . .
Red Ted Art says
The garden centre? Some supermarkets at this time of year? Online (e.g. amazon)… we had normal cress seeds.
creativejewishmom/sara says
So adorable, thanks for sharing on craft schooling Sunday!
Katherine Collmer says
I love this science/craft idea! It is so creative! I will share:) Thanks for sharing it with us!
George says
This is a terrific introduction to science. I’m going to try this with my kids.
Rosie May says
Love this idea…..wonderful