Garden Related Activities when Kids are out of School

If your kids like to garden they might like some of the following activities that they can do at home.

Planting: 

1) Kids might like to plant some cool season veggies in pots or in the ground. Remember that everything takes longer to grow now that it's not so warm outside. For that reason, I plant seedlings as well as seeds so I'll have vegetables to eat sooner.  I recommend asking the kids what they'd like to plant-usually it'll be their favorite vegetables. Check the back of the seed packets to see how long until germination. That might also be a factor in what you choose to plant!

2) You or they might want to plant some bulbs. At Marquez we're planting some red tulips behind yellow pansies. They'll look good together.  I also like planting paper whites-they are easy to grow and smell great!

3) Kids can research what they'd like to plant in a spring garden and then order seed catalogs.

4) If they want to start seeds indoors using grow lights like we have at Marquez, check out the grow light gardens from Gardeners Supply.
5) Plant some wildflower seeds. California poppy seeds can be found at most nurseries. (Kids learn about poppies in our study of plants used by indigenous peoples). Theodore Payne has a large variety and you can check on-line and have seeds sent to you. 

Wind chimes:

1) Wind chimes can be made out of various materials. Some Marquez students are going to make some out of terracota pots for our sensory garden. I'm going to make some out of xylophone pieces. There are lots of good ideas on Pinterest.

Garden gifts for others:

1) Kids can paint a terracota pot with acrylic paint and then plant seeds or seedlings in it as a gift.  They could give someone a small herb garden or salad garden. They can also do this with paperwhite bulbs.

Other garden related activities:

1) Kids can help make raised beds. Gardeners.com has some raised beds that are easy to put together. 2) Make a worm bin or purchase one and start composting with worms. The worms do best at temps from mid 50 to mid-70s so consider keeping the bin in the garage. Worm bins can be made out of large Rubbermaid containers. Just put holes in the top so the worms can breathe and some in bottom for drainage. Put another bin underneath to catch moisture. Directions for worm composting: https://www.lacitysan.org/cs/groups/public/documents/document/y250/mda4/~edisp/cnt008925.pdf

Reading:

1) Kids might like to read books about gardening either factual or fiction. Kids Can Compost is an introductory book about composting, Planting a Rainbow, Compost Stew, Growing Vegetable Soup are also good books for young gardeners.

2) Garden project books: Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots has fun projects as does The Book of Gardening Projects for Kids.

Red wriggler worms and some planting

Today we investigated the red wriggler worms that we're putting in our worm bin by looking at them under magnifying glasses.  The kids enjoyed the worms--many held them!  The worm eggs are small and yellowish. You can see them in the second photo below.  We discussed that the worms are voracious eaters and that means that that eat a lot. The kids could see the worms digesting food as it moved through their bodies. Some kids also planted tomatoes and beets. Other kids harvested the stalks and leaves of the broccoli plants and put them in the compost bin.

Thanks to the parents, students and teachers who contributed vegetables and fruit to our compost bins and the cafeteria manager who saved coffee grounds! We will be adding to our bins every Wednesday, so please bring the worms some food next week!

Here is what they did, in the words of one second grader (written on my laptop):


We saw red wrigglers digesting food.
We saw pill bugs.
We saw worm eggs.
We saw red wrigglers.
We looked at the red wrigglers with magnifying glasses.

"E"    Room 11

Vocabulary for today included: red wrigglers, microscope, decomposers, digesting, voracious eaters.