Create some beautiful Spring art work by printing flower shapes with okra. A lovely printing activity for kids that can be turned into Easter, Mother’s Day or thank you cards,or simply coloured in to become a garden full of beautiful flowers!
I love printing activities for kids because they are amongst the simplest and easiest ways to get creative and there is such a huge variety of man made and natural materials that can be used, for a full range of shapes and sizes. We have long had this activity on our must-try list and, with Spring here, it was the perfect time to have a go!
When you make a sideways cut into okra a beautiful, perfect flower shape is made, ready to stamp onto paper!
We only needed 2 or 3 okra, one ink pad in multi-colours and some large pieces of plain paper to get started. Simply push down firmly into the ink until it has transferred enough onto the whole edge of the okra, then push onto the paper!
The images are so perfect it is hard to believe they are not from a rubber stamp. The girls enjoyed using huge sheets of paper to cover at random with many different colours, sometimes creating mixed colours by transferring from one ink pad to the next. 
They were quite irresistible to colour in too and looked so lovely when done! Of course I had a go too. The okra makes a great little tool for printing as it is robust and so easy for small hands to grip onto. That makes it fabulous for fine motor skills and strengthening too.
We left some as whole pieces of art work and others we stamped directly onto plain greetings cards, ready to give for birthdays, thank yous, Mother’s day (here’s hoping!) or pretty little Easter cards. Cakie loved doing this so much she took the rest of the okra into school to show the trick to her friends too!
Cakie: 5.6
Pop: 3.11
Bean: 2.0
What they are learning as they play:
creativity: printing with unusual and natural objects, stamping with ink, colouring and blending
maths: observing shapes and patterns in nature
phse: making cards and gifts for others, sharing ideas with friends
physical: fine motor strength and co-ordination
See all our Spring and Easter ideas here!
You may like to see our Broccoli print blossom trees
That’s so lovely. I’m a paediatrician and currently working on a project to help kids eat their vegetables, I never thought of painting with them as well. Such a good way to get them used to strange and new things like okra.
This is so unbelievably cute!! My kids love stamping anything so I will have to be on the lookout for okra next time I am at the store.
We have printed with the cut off end of celery- the part you throw in the compost bin. It prints a beautiful rose.