I recently saw a post on Instagram that said “you want to start a revolution? teach your kids how to grow their own food”. So here we are.
What are we revolting against? I think we’d all have slightly different answers to this, but for me, it’s as much the blindness to the world around us as it is big food. I’m motivated to continue teaching children to grow their own food when I meet with a new group of kids and hear “that’s a leaf, you can’t eat that” in regards to basil or “eeek worms are so gross”. I’m motivated to continue teaching children to grow their own food when I see their eyes light up at tasting a cucumber fresh from the garden or when they try a raw tomato for the first time.
I take it for granted that my daughter (3) knows how garlic grows or that we start seeds which grow into sprouts that we plant in our garden. I see firsthand that her diet is much more varied and diverse in the spring through fall when we have stuff growing in the home garden and she can wander through it while playing for a snack. It’s not a coincidence.
Here are some accessible gardening activities and talking points that you can use to engage with your children and our natural world this month.
Homemade Seed Starting Pods
Use toilet paper or paper towel rolls for seed starting. You can pack soil into them as is or cut a few slits and fold them over so they have a more solid bottom.
Talking Points:
Introduce the concept of recycling and where the toilet paper roll goes if you throw it away. It’s a natural segue to discuss how gardening is also good for the environment, or the health of the Earth.
Discuss the plant life cycle from seed to sprout to leaves to flower to fruit.
This activity provides practice for developing fine motor skills through folding, filling and planting seeds.
Paper Maché Veggies
Use some trash to create a general veggie shape and paper maché to cover it. We used golf pencils (the mini kind) and covered them with plastic grocery bags that were ripped. We then used paper maché to create a fun carrot shape.
Here’s my recipe for paper maché: 2 cups boiling water, 1 cup flour, 1 tablespoon salt. Mix well and let cool until you can safely touch the mixture with bare hands.
Talking Points:
Draw the connection between the veggies you are creating and the seeds that you’ve planted in the garden or something you’ve eaten recently. These connections help children find meaning and purpose in their activities.
This is another opportunity to talk about recycling and reducing our waste.
Focus on seasonal foods. Talk about what season it is currently (or about to be) and how the sun changes throughout the year to provide us with different weather (at least where we live) and different seasons. With that comes different foods.
Celebrate Spring Equinox
Spring equinox is a day that ushers us from winter to spring and has equal hours of day and night (hence the name equinox). It can be celebrated with seasonal foods, natural mandalas with foraged items, setting intentions for the season ahead, lighting a candle or having a picnic.
Talking Points:
Discuss the four seasons. Talk about the weather during each season and some memories and holidays during the seasons. This will help your child to draw a connection and remember the different seasons.
Do you notice anything different outside? Maybe some flowers have bloomed. Do the trees have buds?
Are you having a picnic? Are there any other animals looking for food or having a picnic too?
Go on a Sensory Hike
Explore the power of observation by focusing your hike on finding things to see, hear, smell, feel and taste. Be careful with taste. You may find fiddlehead ferns, ramps, chickweed, dandelion, or mushrooms to eat on a spring hike.
Talking Points:
Explore the senses. Use counting and fingers to name the senses. Create a pattern while observing - see, hear, smell, feel, taste and repeat.
Pick one item and ask your child about each sense related to that item.
After the hike take a moment to reflect with your child - how was that hiking experience different than others you’ve had?
Make a Custom Tea Blend
Gather some dried herbs and fruit and let your child smell them all and create a custom tea blend. Aurora loves mixing different herbs and spices into concoctions while we cook. This is a fun way to engage their senses and make them active participants in what they consume.
Talking Points:
This is another sensory activity. Encourage use of their hands to crumble herbs and smell them before mixing them.
Make it a creative activity - what should the tea be named? Use this as an opportunity to identify the herbs and plants with your child.
For older kids, it would be beneficial to talk about the healing or medicinal properties of the different herbs and how they work together.
We are launching this year’s gardening club with daycare this week by planting peas. I’m so excited to have been asked to lead and organize this again this year. We are expanding what we are growing, introducing containers for potatoes and sweet potatoes and have a completely new set of lessons that we are teaching. If you’re able, I’d love for you to check out the wishlist that I created on Amazon and consider purchasing something that would directly impact the lessons and plans we have for the kids!
The kids are ages 2-6. Most come from low-income families and as of last year had not experienced anything like a garden or growing their own food. Many of the kids were afraid of the soil and worms, so much of our focus was on exposure and creating a safe environment in the garden.
We appreciate any gifts you can make in the name of teaching our future generation to garden!