Does your kid likes to garden, or are you a parent that wants to teach your kids how to garden? Gardening is a great activity for kids to do! For example, gardening helps kids get exercise and spent time in the sun! Let’s talk about gardening tips for gardening with your kids.
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Gardening Tips for Kids
Besides, gardening can help teach children responsibility, particularly if they are in charge of planting and taking care of their garden or plants! This is a great homeschool unit study in the making. Planting from seeds is going to cover all your subjects:
- math – how deep and far apart the seeds are planted, time for germanation, time till harvest, how many plants needs to get what you want to harvest, etc
- language arts/reading – reading of seed packages, etc
- science – you are growing plants with your children, there is your science
Here are a couple of garden tips for kids:
Read The Planting Instructions
Before you do any kinds of planting, you will want to make sure that you read the planting instructions! The planting instructions will be found on the back of the seed packet. Or, if you are planting a little plant from a pot, the planting instructions will probably be found on a little tab that is stuck in the soil.
You should also make sure that your plant will grow well in your type of garden. This is important if you want your plant to grow correctly, in the amount of time that it is supposed to grow in. Your kids are going to be counting down the days till something happens. Nothing worse than doing the work for nothing to grow.
For example, is your garden space in a lot of shade? Then you will want to plant something that does well in “shady” or “partly shady” areas. If your garden area is sunny most of the time, then you will want to plant something that does well in “full sun.” Broccoli likes shady areas whereas cucumbers like full sun.
Gardening Tip: Follow The Watering Instructions
Some plants need to have water every day, and other plants do not. Your planting instructions should also include some information about how much water your plant needs. This is often a favorite chore for kids, because they, essentially, get to play with the hose.
For example, if your plant needs to be placed in “moist soil,” you might need to water your plant every day. Before watering, you should gently place your fingers on the dirt by the plant to see if it is wet. If it is dry, then it is time to water your plan.
Use Popsicle Sticks For Plant Markers
One fun gardening tip for kids is using Popsicle sticks to mark where your plants are! This is especially helpful if you have planted seeds because you want to remember where your seeds are placed in the ground! After covering up your seed, you should stick a Popsicle stick or a regular stick in the ground to mark your place.
If you like, write the name of the plant on the Popsicle stick with a marker. Then, you will know exactly where your plant needs to be watered until it begins to pop out of the ground!
Find A Picture Of Your Plant Leaves
When taking care of your garden, you probably will need to pull up weeds every once in a while. Before you begin weeding, you should find a picture of the leaves of your garden plant. Use your picture of your plant to compare to the weeds.
This will help you to make sure that you and your kids only pull up weeds in your garden so that you won’t pull your garden plant out of the ground by mistake! Very important to learn early on, and make sure your kids aren’t rushing through weeding the garden.
Biggest Gardening Tip: Be Patient
Gardening is a lot of fun for kids, but sometimes it can take a while for plants to grow. Just be patient and let your plants take their time! After a while, you will be able to enjoy the plants that you grew all by yourself!
Look for plants that grow fast. Herbs are a really great choice for this.
Teaching Kids to Garden in Our Homeschool