Tony O’Neill, gardener and author of the popular “Composting Masterclass” and “Your First Vegetable Garden,” combines lifelong passion and expert knowledge to simplify the art of gardening. His mission? Helping you cultivate a thriving garden.
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A garden is a wonderful feature for every family with kids to incorporate into their lives. It does not need to be large or extraordinary; even a small garden can open up opportunities to a growing child.
Gardening is a great way for kids to be able to experiment, work, learn, and of course, have fun in the process. The biggest challenge families with young kids may face is figuring out exactly how to make the garden fun for kids instead of making it feel like a chore. How can we make it into something that will become an exciting activity, and is this even possible?
Table of Contents
- 11 things to do for a fun kids’ garden
- Giving the Kids Additional (Fun) Responsibility for a fun kids garden
- Giving the kids room to play in their fun kids’ garden
- Fun Aspects of Personal Garden Tools while doing tasks in their kid’s garden
- Helping Kids Use All Their Senses in their fun kids garden
- Additional Elements that you can add to your fun kids’ garden
- Competition in the fun kids’ garden (Don’t Take it Too Seriously!)
- Benefits of Growing a Fun Kids Garden
- Bonus Ideas For Making Your Kid’s Garden Fun
- Therefore, Garden Away!
Fortunately, yes! A garden is not only useful for looking pretty and growing some organic vegetables. It is also beneficial for learning responsibility, safe foraging practices, and the basic needs required for survival!
11 things to do for a fun kids’ garden
Certain things can be incorporated into a garden to make it fun for kids. These can include items off of this list:
1. Place the children directly responsible for certain plants or parts of the garden.
2. Keep track of the number and sizes of plants in the garden within a journal so your kids can see the work they do pay off, which will be shown by either the plant growing bigger and taller or by totally new plants sprouting.
3. Allow the kids a portion of the garden to play in the dirt and make a mess when they are not actively helping with garden activities.
4. Allow the kids to safely play with and watch bugs roam around that they may find in the garden.
5. Make sure that you include sensory plants in the garden- kids love different smells, tastes, and textures, which will help keep them from getting bored.
6. Dedicate time for garden crafts- kids love painting, drawing, and other physical activities, so allowing them to paint on pots and rocks can keep them busy for hours!
7. Add a bird feeder to the garden and allow the kids to ensure it contains bird feed and stays clean.
8. Add water to your garden, whether a small pond or a fountain.
9. Allow the kids to have their own set of tools that they can use for gardening. They will take more pride in caring for and cleaning things they own!
10. Allow the kids to have some growing competition- it’s always more fun when you’re trying to be the absolute best!
11. Add a mud kitchen element where the kids can gather to play with toys, eat snacks, and rest!
Gardens can be a great learning experience for kids of all ages, as long as it is a place where they are free to experiment while having fun!
Giving the Kids Additional (Fun) Responsibility for a fun kids garden
The words “responsibility” and “fun” rarely go hand-in-hand. They almost seem to be opposites of each other. However, kids can see responsibility differently than the rest of the world.
Being responsible for certain plants or a certain part of the garden will add an element of fun, as it will encourage the kids to work harder on paying attention and making sure they take good care of all their plants, keeping them properly watered and clean to allow them to grow as large and healthy as possible.
Remember, it is always easiest to take your responsibilities seriously when you are working towards a payout.
Therefore, rewarding the kids for doing a good job in all the areas they are responsible for will motivate them to work harder and more diligently.
Giving the kids room to play in their fun kids’ garden
Ensuring the garden has dedicated space for playing and relaxing is essential to making a garden fun for kids. Not even adults can handle “all work, no play,” so expecting kids to come to your garden to plant seeds, water plants, and pull weeds will turn into a chore they may begin to hate.
However, if they can see they have specifically dedicated time and a spot where they can waste time, run around, throw dirt, and catch bugs, it may just turn out to be their favorite part of their outdoor activities!
Therefore, set some boundaries with them, so they do not accidentally ruin any prized parts of your garden but allow them to have a special place used just for leisure activities.
Fun Aspects of Personal Garden Tools while doing tasks in their kid’s garden
As backward as this point may seem at first glance, allowing each child to have their gardening tools is a great idea. Yes, it may entail more cleanup, storage, and initial financial investment upfront, but the benefits it brings with it can be worth their weight in gold!
Allowing your child to go to the store with you and choose their own garden tools gives them a sense of pride in ownership.
Knowing that it took hard-earned money to pay for those simple tools will motivate them to take good care of them, keep them clean, and put them to good use so that the money invested will not go to waste.
Gardening tools for kids while they are in their fun kids’ garden
In addition, having their own set of tools will allow each child to personalize them! This can be a fun project to keep your kids busy by painting, decorating, and signing their new tools.
On top of that, if you have multiple kids who will be coming to your garden, it is recommended that you do not buy each child the same set of tools. If every child has only a different portion needed of the entire tool setup, they will have to learn how to share their tools to ensure they can all collectively complete all their gardening tasks.
This is another valuable lesson that gardening can teach your kids- sharing is caring! Only with proper sharing can everybody succeed at their part of making the garden a success.
Helping Kids Use All Their Senses in their fun kids garden
A garden is a fun learning center, but as we all know, humans tend to learn better using different styles and techniques. Some learn best from simply listening and following instructions; others need to see it done before doing what is expected.
Someone may even require physical touching, smelling, or perhaps even tasting to truly feel that they learned something new that will stick in their memory and help them grow.
Therefore, to ensure all the kids can have fun learning in your garden, allow them to use all their senses- hearing, seeing, touching, smelling, and, if safe, even tasting!
To make this as enjoyable as possible, try adding flowers that smell great, plants with different textures and feels, and even some vegetables they can eat after they are ripe and ready!
Additional Elements that you can add to your fun kids’ garden
By adding a few fairly inexpensive additional elements to your garden, the fun kids can have in it can go through the roof! A bird feeder will keep them entertained as they can watch birds fly in and out, eating and nesting in their garden home.
A small pond could also be a wonderful gathering place for frogs or perhaps even a home for some goldfish, who we know kids could watch in amazement for hours! These things that are not necessarily essential to a garden could become the biggest hits!
Competition in the fun kids’ garden (Don’t Take it Too Seriously!)
Competition is an important part of every kid’s life and a wonderful way to ensure that each child will put in their best efforts individually! This will additionally help them experiment, learn and grow!
With this said fun competitive streak, we think that introducing the idea of changing your garden into a vegetable one would help their creative and nurturing skills kids, seeing how they can be with the plants from day one and see them grow and bloom; we have the perfect article on this if you want to check it out!
“Why try to explain miracles to your children when you can have them plant a garden.”
Janet Kilburn Phillips
However, ensure the kids understand that competition is meant to be fun so they do not attempt to sabotage or ruin each other’s projects. In addition, you can even make the competition be adults against kids, which causes the kids to try even harder as they always want a chance to do something better than their parents!
Benefits of Growing a Fun Kids Garden
In addition to everything stated earlier, having a fun kids’ garden could have a wonderful impact on your family. Imagine that instead of spending most of your free time as a family in front of a television watching shows and cartoons, you could spend portions of that time outside, in your garden!
Having every member of your family involved in this project allows your family to bond closer together and learn valuable life lessons!
If everybody has a designated task or chore in the garden, it helps teach responsibility, as everybody depends on one another to be accountable and fulfill their duties. If you skip out, you will be letting down your family, and nobody wants to do that!
Also, receiving praise from your loved ones for a job well done, up-keeping your portion of the garden and growing healthy plants is a wonderful way to strengthen your relationship with each other.
Working and playing together is the most rewarding and memorable experience, and a family garden is the perfect setting for such a task!
Bonus Ideas For Making Your Kid’s Garden Fun
With all this, we would also like to introduce bonus ideas to ensure that you and your family will have the best fun and time in the garden!
- Hide some fun gifts in a “treasure chest” and bury them in the garden. Give the kids a map and some clues, and let them try to find it!
- Have family picnics in the garden where you will not accidentally destroy any plants.
- Add a compost pile to help your family recycle in a more fun and efficient way! To start on the compost pile journey, you might want to check this article that perfectly explains the composting way of life and its tips and tricks.
Therefore, Garden Away!
Overall, a properly planned garden can be a wonderful space for kids to spend much of their childhoods. It gives them a sense of responsibility, pride, and purpose, ad they are given a chance to care for something other than themselves!
With the ability to try new things, experiment with live plants, and have plenty of time to hang out in and play with nature, a garden could be just what every developing child needs!
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