15 Fun Gardening with Kids Ideas

I’m just a bit fanatical when it comes to teaching kids to garden. So here are 15 Fun Gardening with Kids Ideas of all ages. Just think about it…it’s the perfect learning experience and time to “plant” God’s word into your child’s heart.

It’s a great time of year to plant a little garden (indoor or out)…for those itching to get the Spring started early! Grandparents, this is a GREAT time for you to connect with your grandkids…especially if Mom and Dad are super busy!

If you need some more fun you will love How to Have the Best Adventures at Home with Kids.

15 Fun Gardening with Kids Ideas

Use these FUN simple guidelines and ideas to get started growing a little garden.

How Can I Teach My Child to Garden:

• Make it easy ~ In this day and age of busyness we want NEED simple and easy!  Easy seeds to grow, easy gardens to tend and easy to gather supplies.
• Purchase child size plastic garden tools so that the kids have their very own.  Even if you plant a small seed indoors, kids can become familiar with what each little tool does.

Don’t get overwhelmed by the thought of a garden. A “garden” can be 1 seed in 1 container on 1 windowsill of your home!  There you have it…an indoor garden. 

As mentioned above, you can have a teeny tiny garden on your window sill or a big elaborate garden outdoors…

How do I introduce my preschooler to gardening

• You can plant a seed in any kind of container you like; buckets, boots, milk cartons, 2 liter pop bottles…anything!  The main thing you need to have is some drainage on the bottom so that over watering does not occur.  If the container you use doesn’t already have holes, make them.
• Seeds that grow super easy indoors are Beans,  Radishes,  Onions,  Peas,  Sweet Alyssum,  Nasturtiums,  Parsley, Sweet Peas.  Just to name a few!  If you can’t find many seed varieties in your local store’s, then order seeds from Amazon or order one of these free catalogs and order from there. 

• If you have an indoor garden, make sure that you pick a spot in your house that will get at least 6-8 hours of sunlight.  If you don’t have this, there are special growing light bulbs you can buy at your local garden nursery.
• Be sure and do the above things together! Planning a garden is a big part of the fun.

Gardening with Kids Lessons

Let’s further investigate the reasons having a gardening with a child can help with their development.

• Creates a sense of self confidence and self reliance ~ Kids need to know how to grow their own food.  Just think…one of the reasons people are starving in some parts of the world is simply because they do no know how to plant a garden!  Truly sad!
• Stimulates the senses with  wonderful smells.  Not to mention the fun of digging in dirt!
• Kids become curious and start to ask many “scientific” questions: How does the seed grow? How long will it take?  How can we make it grow faster?
• Parent and child bonding will happen when doing a fun project together and investigating the wonders of that little seed that is underground.  Use your own sense of wonder Mom and Dad!

Fun Gardening Ideas with Kids

There is no end to the little garden projects you can do with kids, here are just a few!

• Plant grass in the shape of your child’s hand-print ~ super easy and grass grows fast.

• Seed Sorting ~ Buy different sizes of seeds and sort them, glue them into pictures and then plant the leftovers.
• This kit is super fun! Kids can see the roots growing and get a better understanding of what’s going on underneath the soil…in that secret place! We’ve done this for our home school and it’s super fun!

 Root-Vue Farm Garden Laboratory

• Create little garden markers (even if you plant one seed) out of popsicle sticks or use old spoons!

• Create a little chart to keep track of the day you last watered your seeds.  Then make a chart for when your seed starts to grow.  Measure each week out big it is growing.
• Grow Seed Hair! ~ I just love grass projects! LOL

• Gather free catalogs and cut out the pictures, sort by whether they are flowers or vegetables.  Glue them into a little notebook.
• Don’t have great weather yet? Start a garden inside…a Paper Carrot Garden!

• I LOVE this little book: The Garden Classroom! TONS of ideas and hand-on activities in Math, Science, Literacy and Art…PLUS recipes! So fun!

Teaching patience is hard to teach children.  With gardening, you can be doing other fun projects while they wait patiently for that little seed to pop out of the ground.  Part of being patient is finding other things to do while you wait.

Happy Gardening!