Gardening has many benefits for young children, including developing responsibility skills , fostering a sense of community, and developing confidence as they care for the plant and observe the growth. To begin, all you need are a few materials, and gardening doesn’t need an ample outdoor space; you can easily create a small indoor garden to fit your program.

Stephanie Mckinstry from My Caterpillar Clubhouse, a Certified Nature Explore Classroom, shares more benefits of gardening, how she begins her garden indoor  and transfers the seeds to her outdoor garden. Watch below.

 

Our garden

In our garden, we focus on learning together, caring for each other and our planet, and helping children develop a sense of belonging to a community and the natural world. We learn about growing our own food, composting, and recycling.

Here are just a few benefits of gardening with children:

We talk about all the flower parts, exploring each part by touching and smelling!

 

We observe and document using different materials!

 

 

Now we explore and eat!

A container garden can be a great way to garden when space is limited and also a great way to get children started with gardening.  Taking part in the process from seed to plate is a great learning opportunity for children, and might even get picky eaters to try something new that they have helped to grow themselves!  This resource gives tips for how to create a garden of edibles, from choosing containers to selecting the kinds of edible plants you would like to grow.  There are links to many other resources to support this activity.

Growing Edibles in Containers Handout

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