Amazon Orchids

The Amazon Orchids Invitation to Create from Experience Preschool‘s Explore the Rainforest is one of my all time favorites! We learned that orchids are beautiful flowers that grow in the rainforest’s understory.

Orchids grow on tree trunks in the understory. They grow in a variety of patterns, colors, and sizes. Orchids grow well in the Amazon rainforest
because of the warm, humid climate.

Experience Preschool Curriculum

Amazon Rainforest Orchids

We learned that orchids and chocolate plants grow in the understory of the rainforest. It’s also where monkeys and geckos live.

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We’ve made these orchids four years ago, and they turned out amazing then too. At that time, I cut flower shapes by hand and the children colored them before assembling the flowers.

This time I decided to cut orchid templates on my Cricut Maker so it was quicker and more accurately an orchid shape. If you’re interested in the Cricut orchid template, it’s linked in the box below.

Paper orchid template for Cricut Maker

Paper orchids are beautiful all year around and would make lovely Mother’s Day gift, Valentine or Easter craft.

After cutting the orchid shapes, the children used watercolors to paint the flowers. We used old fashioned watercolors, but liquid watercolors would be more vibrant and amazing too.

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My kids can be more enthralled with creating new colors of water than actually painting, so that was a distraction, but eventually, they painted all 6 of their flower petals.

See all of my free printables here >> Free Printables from Share & Remember

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After the flowers dried, we glued the flowers together, layering the smaller petals in front of the larger ones.

We glued tissue paper into the center of each flower. Then I used the hot glue gun to attach the flowers to a green pipecleaner for the flower stem.

The children also painted their paper pots. I used to hot glue to glue rocks into the bottom of the cups. The flower stems were also glued to the bottom.

Then we added two large orchid plant leaves and brown crinkled paper over top to fill the small pot.

Orchid stems tend to be quite heavy with the flowers and buds so we used a dollar store wood dowel (craft stick would work too) to support the stem. Glue the dowel or craft stick to the bottom of the pot or to the side. Then glue the stem to the stick.

Certainly, the preschoolers could make orchids completely on their own without my assistance, but sometimes I help more than other times.

See The Sophisticated Teacher’s child made Amazon Orchids.

That’s one thing I love about using Experience Early Learning – the curriculum is so flexible depending on how you want to use it, how much time you have on any given day, and what ideas you personally bring to it. There’s room for many different interpretations!

Another variation would be to make a flat orchid on a piece of cardstock instead of a 3D plant.

Everyone was so pleased to carry their pretty little paper orchid craft home to their families!

More Rainforest Activities

• Chocolate Grows in the Rainforest
• Rainforest Collages
• What’s in the Box? Explore the Rainforest
• Hands on Number Concepts for Preschoolers
• Swinging Experiment for Preschoolers