Kid stuff
Gardening can teach children science, history, nutrition and math, and it offers good shoulder-to-shoulder time with parents and grandparents. A study reveals that children who participated in gardening activities had a greater willingness to try new fruits and vegetables. And an adult who supervised a large group of children stated, “Our mission is to use horticulture to grow good gardens and good kids.”
Planning a garden teaches counting and measuring, graphing, fractions and percentages. After measuring the garden space, help your child make a scale drawing on paper. Let a one-inch square on the paper represent one square foot in the garden. Example: If your garden measures 10 feet by 10 feet, have the child draw 10 rows of 10 one-inch boxes. Ask him or her to calculate how many plants the garden can sustain if you insert one plant per square foot. Ask what percentage of the garden is 24 pepper plants. Cross-pollinating math and gardening adds up to a terrific learning experience. Nursery catalog pictures are helpful.
Before the first foray into gardening, you might want to set aside some empty plastic cups or yogurt containers for indoor planting. Try
saving seeds from favorite fruits like apples, pears and pumpkins. Help children chart the seedlings’ progress until they’re ready to be taken outside. Then work together on special markers to note the plants’ locations.
Young children usually are more interested in the activities than the end results, so let them be a part of the decision-making process — what to plant, when and why. Digging planting holes, filling them with water, looking for bugs, learning to read seed packets and making plant markers are great activities to encourage.