Do you like working in the garden? You should include your children in some of your gardening tasks! There are some great top tips for gardening with children. It’s a great opportunity for them to learn, and be active too. So time to put the wellies on, the hands dirty and get some fun and educational gardening done with your children!
Why Gardening with Children?
There are so many good reasons you should start getting your kids involved with gardening! It is an excellent learning opportunity for them. Just being outside already is a great and healthy thing for any child to do in times when many children are glued behind screens all day!
Children will learn so much from being a part of the process of planting things and seeing them grow and develop for themselves.
There will be a very tiring sense of responsibility children can develop from gardening. They will care for seeds and plants that will grow. And they will learn to care for it and keep it healthy.
It will give children confidence and they can develop a great understanding of things such as to cause and effect. When watering a plant, it will grow, for example.
Finally, it is so important for children to see and learn when plants, fruits and vegetables come from. There will be great and important lessons in nutrition too when then can eat a salad full of freshly grown veggies too!
De-weeding Game
The de-weeding game is a great way to have your children get stuck in with an important part of gardening: de-weeding. The trick is to make it fun, and exciting. Firstly you want to explain why it is important to de-weed the garden. And make sure to show which are weeds, and which are actual plants and flowers.
Be careful with children using tools for de-weeding. If they can use their hands, this might be the safest option.
So once the children are clear on what needs to be removed and why. Make a game of who can remove the most weeds at a certain time! It will keep the kids focused and excited for a set period of time and they will learn lots about all the different plants and weeds!
Plant Your Own
A great idea for children is to have their own little patch in the garden that is fully theirs. Make sure it is in a sunny spot so you can use it for planting different types of flowers, fruit and vegetables.
Giving children their own area makes it special for them and also gives them a great sense of responsibility. Include them in selecting nice and easy seeds to plant. Just make sure that these are herbs, plants, flowers that will grow easy. So that your children can see a quick and good result of their hard gardening work!
There are lots of easy vegetables to plant which can be a really exciting thing to do. Because then not only will your children learn about how food like this grows, and where it comes from. They will also get the joy of creating a meal they have grown from seed themselves!
Bugs
Any garden will have plenty of bugs and worms crawling around. These will be fascinating for children and a really good way for them to learn about small creatures, and what they do.
Do can make a large glass pot with some soil and leaves. Then let your kids go around and find or collect bugs from the garden and put them in the large pot. Make sure you help them be gentle with the bugs. Once in the pot, you can spend some fun time identifying different types of bugs and worms. Your children will be able to have a proper look at them and see how they move around too. A fun and easy activity your kids will love and learn from. Just make sure you release the bugs back into the garden in the end!
Child Safety in the Garden
If your children will start helping in your garden, you want to keep safety in mind. Although there will be lots of fun things to do. Some things could be safety hazards.
So make sure children will not be able to reach or handle any heavy or sharp tools or machinery. Ideally, this should not be lying around for your kids to grab. But also make sure your children understand what they can and cannot use. And why it could be dangerous too!
Also, be careful with fertilisers and sprays that could be harmful. Children and naturally inquisitive, so they might try to grab or lick any of the bottles. Which could be highly dangerous! Keep them out of reach at all times.
Finally, it could be a good idea to get your children some suited gardening gloves and equipment specially made for them. Lots of shops will have gardening tools, especially for children. This will make it safe and fun for them, to work in their little garden patch even more!
Are you excited to use these top tips for gardening with your children? Or would you like to have a little more help and guidance when it comes to gardening in general? Polo & Tweed can help! We have an excellent selection of top gardeners on our books who can help you out. Whether you are looking for a part-time, full time or ad hoc help, we can assist. Why not contact us now and we can get the search started for you.