Vegetable Gardening with Kids
September 19, 2014
September 19, 2014
Gardening with kids
I spend a number of hours each week in my vegetable garden. To keep my six year old and three year old interested, and happy to come out with me, I introduced them to gardening from the time they were babies. My six year old is now at school, he loved being in the garden. My three year old is more of a challenge, he would prefer to be inside. I have had to work hard at each of these items below to keep my youngest son engaged and happy so that I can get some garden-based activities completed each week.
Mr Fresh and I both enjoy being outdoors and we involve the boys in all of the outdoor activities and projects that we are working on. It is a rich learning environment that allows them to learn and develop a broad range of skills and knowledge.
A vegetable garden is a wonderful learning environment for children. We talk about food in our home A LOT! The vegetable garden acts as the basis for these discussions, the meal preparation process and also the meals.
Group activities (or garden tasks) together. Don’t start a large activity with the expectation that you will finish it the same day. Complete a little of the activity over multiple days in blocks of 1-2 hours.
Don’t be overly concerned about the children getting wet or dirty
Allow your kids to choose if they wish to be involved in what you are doing and help, or not.
Carry the garden activities into the kitchen
Create a routine. Our routine for stepping out to the garden is:
Collecting, drying and planting seeds
Labelling and caring for plants
Collecting produce, identifying readiness by color, and size
Weeding
Mulching
Identify garden bugs – pests and friends
Establish the concept of gardening and it’s produce as a valuable gift
There are many fun activities that can fill up your days in the garden:
These are some of the garden based projects that we have had fun with over the past few years:
Do you have any additional tips for involving kids in the vegetable garden? I would love to hear them in the comments below.
*This is a revised version of a post originally created for Easy Read Systems.
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I have grandchildren of 7 and 4 and they have always been involved in the garden. They love to feed the worms (and look at the worms, but not ready to touch!) this weekend I got some of those mulch blocks and my! Did they enjoy watering the block and watching it grow (It is going to take over the world Grandma!) The four year old went home clutching her little bag of cherry tomatoes. They love to pick and eat the garden lollies (mint)
That is great Gillian, it sounds like you had a lovely weekend. I love the lollies!