Flower Mandalas with Kids

When I was 15 years old I took a trip to India for 2 weeks. The entire time there was packed full of exotic sights, sounds and smells. One of my favorite memories was waking up early every morning and climbing up to the roof of the building where we were staying to watch the women of the neighbourhood go out onto their front steps scrub them clean, sweep them off and use chalk, flower petals or dyed sawdust to create beautiful intricate mandalas. Every morning the old ones where carefully cleaned away and new ones were made in their place. 

These mandalas were created by my children with very little input from me. I showed them a few pictures of flower mandalas online and suggested that we might try making some using only flowers and objects found around our home. They thought it sounded like fun so we set out, basket in hand to cut flowers and leaves. They made about 15 different mandalas spread throughout the yard. When the wind started blowing and tossing the flowers around, we gathered a few more flowers and came inside to make one more mandala on the dining room table. Even 2 year old Claire helped out pulling petals off the flowers so Matthew could place them in the mandala. These mandalas don't last very long but they are fun to design and smell great!