Gardening with your children is a wonderful way to teach them values of compassion, respect and care. They will also love getting their hands dirty and planting colorful blooms! While gardening with your children you can teach them math skills, work on their fine motor skills, help them to identify colors and learn names of plants. The learning opportunities are endless when working in the garden with your children!
This weekend, if you don't already have Family Garden Time, then it is time to start! Simply find a good area of your yard to do some planting. Be sure to check out which produce grows best at certain times of year in your climate. The following link will help you with that at The Vegetable Garden.
Then, find out from your children which plants and fruit they would like best to plant by showing them pictures and asking them to choose their favorites, or by taking them to the Farmer's Market to identify which fruit and vegetables they think taste the best. Once you have your chosen seeds or seedlings, sketch out the plot to determine where and how many rows of plants you will have. If your child is old enough to help you with the math and drawing of this, then praise her for that!
Once you have your sketch, begin to plant! While you are planting be sure your children have little hats, sunglasses and gardening gloves and a shovel that are their size and kid-friendly. A great site for such products are at Gardening with Kids.
Your children will be excited to check in on and take care of their garden each day and especially on the weekends as you continue this Family Garden Time activity. Once the flowers bloom they can clip some for a vase in the house, or to give as gifts to teachers. Once the produce grows they can help to come up with and/or cook a meal with the delicious harvest or donate the fruit and veggies to neighbors or local soup kitchens.
Some great books to read to learn more about gardening with your children are below! Enjoy!
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