Importance of Gardening

Gardening with kids has numerous benefits. They get a chance to be outside, active, and learn about nature. These benefits are good for adults too, but for developing brains, gardening is essential. Gardening with kids promotes a healthier lifestyle, not just from being outside, but encouraging them to eat a balanced diet.

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What Do You Learn from Gardening

There are all kinds of interesting lessons to learn in the garden. Gardening with kids opens the door to learn about science, math, reading, colors, and so much more.

Gardening and Childhood Education

Studies show children who participated in gardening projects scored higher in science achievement than those who did not. Sitting in a hard chair for 8 hours a day can suck the fun out of learning. However, the wonder of seeing a garden grow may spark your kids interests. They can learn about the importance of sun or water. The impacts of worms in the soil. Soil composition, photosynthesis and life cycles.

You can count seeds, measure plants from week to week, learn colors of flowers, read seed packets, and garden markers. Lessons are endless when gardening with kids.

Gardening and Child Development

Getting your hands dirty, experimenting, learning new things are essential to childhood. Gardening is a great way to do that, plus get the bonus of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The fresher the produce, the more nutrients it will have. The average meal travels over 3,000 miles to reach our plates. Imagine all the nutrients our brains and bodies are missing out on. Developing brains have a much greater need for these nutrients and gardening is a great way to make sure they get it.

Foods like spinach, garlic and beets (which are all easy to grow) have been show to help with cognitive function and can give your kids an advantage in their growth and development.

Your kids might be picky eaters, but trying new foods, especially ones they grew and are excited about, is a good way to expand their tastes.

Another benefit is physical activity, which makes kids stronger, healthier and better motor skills. They will also get to spend more time with their family, building quality memories that will last a life time.

Learn more about how gardening can impact a child’s mind, body and soul.

What can Children Grow

Finding the perfect thing for your child to grow can be a challenge. You want to find something easy to plant, grows big and fast, and tastes yummy! Below are some great things to trying gardening with kids.

Try planting larger seeds such as squash or watermelon. Fast growing plants include radishes or lettuce. Plants like squash or sunflowers have larger returns, which is fun for kids to experience.

If your kids are picky eaters, try growing potatoes, sugar snap peas or corn to get the ball rolling. These fresher produce usually taste better, which will encourage them to try new things they wouldn’t otherwise like. Learn more about the best things to grow with kids.

Gardening Activities for Preschoolers

There are so many things you can do in the garden with kids, such as obvious things such as planting seeds and harvesting vegetables, but there is so much more. You can learn math, counting seeds, sorting seeds, measuring plant growth, counting produce and seeds you collect.

You can do art, such as painting rocks, making garden markers or gardening decorations and stamping with vegetable skins or leaves. You can also explore texture with inks and paints and even make a paintbrush with materials you find in the garden.

You can also experiment with new tastes and flavors, which encourages healthy eating. They are much more likely to try something they grew. There is also multiple activities when gardening with kids, such as exploring life cycles of plants and insects; learning about symbiotic relationships, such as how beneficial insects affect the garden; and activities that connect kids with nature, such as growing a green bean teepee or a sunflower house.

How to Garden with Kids

Christina Kamp, owner of Little Sprouts Learning Garden, and I wanted to give a comprehensive video to bring these amazing lessons to your home. It gives an in depth look on everything you need to know to be able to garden with your kids.

Video Resources

My mom runs a day care “Little Sprouts Learning Garden” from her home. I’ve done a couple of little projects for her about lessons she does with the kids, but she wanted a full blown video about how to garden with kids. If you want more information, here are the blog post featuring those lessons.

• What’s Growing on in the Garden in May?
• Little Sprouts Learning How to Grow Potatoes
• Little Sprouts Learns About Butterflies
• Benefits of Gardening With Kids
• How to Garden with Young Kids
• How to Get Kids to Eat Healthy Foods
• 20th Anniversary Celebration

We included some of the older kids talking about their experiences and their parents talking about how the experience changed their kids. Some of these parents started their own garden after seeing their kids benefited from this program.

Start Gardening with Kids Today!

The most important point of the video is you do NOT have to know how to garden to start- my mom didn’t, modern farmers didn’t, the first farmers sure as heck didn’t. They learned and continue to learn from a very long process of trial and error. Some seasons will bring a great harvest, some won’t and sometimes you won’t have anything, but if you plant enough the probability that you will have something to show for your work is greatly increased.

Don’t let fear or uncertainty hold you back when there are so many great benefits. Watch the video, learn the basics and just try. Your life and your child’s life will be better for it! If you only have a small space or rent, check out these tips on how to garden in any size space.

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