Use letter stamps to spell out the word mushroom over the print, or if your tot is an avid writer, invite him to write "mushroom" on the picture. Your child can cut his favorite spore print from the paper and glue it to a sheet of brown construction paper.The next day, invite your tot to remove the mushroom tops and check out the prints! To keep the spores from smudging, give the paper a gentle spray of hair spray and let dry.So when the caps are placed on a white paper, the spores are released, creating a really cool print of the underside of the mushroom. The purpose of those mushroom spores is to drop to the ground and create more mushrooms.
The underside of a mushroom cap is made of thousands of gills, which are filled with spores. While you are waiting for the cool results, chat with your lil about what might happen. Find the perfect spot to leave the mushrooms overnight.To avoid the risk of contamination, prepare a clean environment with as little airflow as possible. These can be found online in the form of spore prints, or you can buy ready-made spore syringes. Many cultivators struggle with contamination. To make a spore syringe, you’ll first need to source some magic mushroom spores. When making spore prints, we do everything we can to minimize or avoid contamination of bacteria and other fungi. During the procedure, keeping the print as clean as possible is your top priority. Invite your lil to arrange the mushrooms, flat side down, on the paper. The process of making a spore print is straightforward. Place a sheet of white paper on a sheet pan or in a location where it can remain undisturbed for 24 hours.Help your tot remove the stem of the mushroom, creating a flat button top.You can use different types of mushrooms to see which creates the best print or just use one kind. Invite your child to select several mushrooms for the crafty experiment.Use this activity to talk about biodiversity by comparing spore prints. Only a small amount is needed, but the more you put in the syringe, the faster it will colonize. Instead, make use of the sterilized scalpel to scrape a small number of spores from the foil to a clean shot glass or container. Remove the stem so that when you turn the cap over the gills will make close contact with the paper. Mushrooms produce millions of spores which are equivalent to the seeds of plants. Avoid hand contact with the spore print at all costs. Gather together a few mushrooms and a sheet of paper, and you are ready to get started! The particular colour of the spore print can help you narrow down the number of possibilities in your quest to identify the specimen to species level. Even if your child doesn't care for the flavor of mushrooms, he'll totally be a fan of this fungi after doing this crafty experiment. Along with making something really cool, your tot will learn more about the wonders of nature and that the things we eat can also be used in different ways. Here's a project that's perfect for your lil science geek.