Gardening with Young Children

Introduction to the Second Edition

If you are reading this book, we assume you are interested in gardening with children. We wrote this book as a resource for anyone who works with young children from infancy through third grade. We want it to appeal to a wide audience, not just teachers and caregivers in traditional school settings and child care programs, but family child care providers, Head Start programs, homeschoolers, and parents interested in introducing their children to gardening. We hope infant and toddler caregivers and teachers will introduce even the youngest children to gardening. We also want to give primary teachers examples of how they can actively engage their children in meaningful curriculum through gardening. We have included examples of both rural and urban gardens, and we have provided ideas for those who have little space and few resources, as well as those who have more. We have reached out to programs and teachers throughout the United States, who have helped us by sharing their stories. We hope that you will find what you are looking for here.

You may choose to read Gardening with Young Children from start to finish, but that is not the only way to read it. You may find that one or two chapters contain the information that is most pertinent to your needs, and you can begin with those chapters. Each chapter can be read individually. You could also begin by skipping through the e-book, looking at pictures for inspiration or ideas. However you decide to read the book, know that all the subject matter weaves together to create the whole.

Chapter 1 explains why gardening is important for young children. This chapter will give you the rationale for developing a garden program. Read it if you need to rally support for creating a program. Also, read it to deepen your understanding of how children benefit from gardening. We stress the importance of contact with nature for children’s physical, social, and emotional development and how changes in our society and the physical landscape have impacted childhood over the past few decades.

In chapter 1, you will come to understand the scientifically proven benefits of letting children get dirty. We discuss the international movement to connect children with nature. We also explore the deficit many children have in their understanding of the source of their food and how food moves from seed to table. The role of the teacher is examined as we seek to assure teachers of their competence and capability in gardening with young children. The section What the Teacher Needs to Know actually applies to anyone who works with young children, whether that person is a teacher, parent, grandparent, nanny, curriculum coordinator, caregiver, or educarer. We also share information for administrators about some of the obstacles they may face as they begin building support for a garden program.

The subject of chapter 2 is engaging children in gardening. We want children to be intensely involved, not just observers. This happens when garden projects and plans develop from the children’s own interests. It results in the most meaningful learning. In chapter 2, we discuss how to prepare the children for gardening through exposure to materials and experiences in the classroom, how to help children discover what their interests are, and how to build a garden curriculum based on those interests. Chapter 2 covers specific techniques teachers can use, such as think aloud, talking tubs, and talking and thinking floorbooks. We also discuss in depth how to maintain intellectual integrity in the curriculum, that is, how to assure that what you are teaching the children is worth learning, that the material being presented is true to the discipline, and that the children can relate the content to their lives in a real way.

In chapter 2, we explain how understanding concepts can help us both in our planning and in our teaching. We discuss the creation of concept webs, which can help you come up with questions you want to answer during the life of your project, building a road map for your curriculum. In this chapter, you will also learn how you can build an integrated curriculum incorporating various content areas and how the project approach fits into the garden curriculum. We share how to interact with children in the garden, facilitate peer interactions, and foster learning by asking good questions and using the scientific process. Chapter 2 guides you through engaging children in fieldwork and giving specific suggestions for preparation and follow-up. We also share ideas for using technology for both research and documentation. Finally, we include an extensive section on how to integrate what is going on outside in the garden with your indoor classroom.

Chapter 3 walks you through the process of planning your garden. We begin by helping you explore your goals. We provide an inventory to help you select your garden site. We share ideas for involving children, teachers, volunteers, and others in decisions about the type of garden to construct and the garden design. Chapter 3 covers the advantages and disadvantages of different types of gardens, including container gardens, raised beds, in-ground gardens, gardens grown vertically on a wall or fence, and rooftop gardens. We also offer sample garden plans with themes to help you get started. Throughout chapter 3, we include lots of tips for including children in the garden planning process.

In chapter 4, we explain how to build your garden. We begin by sharing suggestions for obtaining resources, materials, and funding, as well as true stories from programs that have been successful in procuring outside resources. We discuss how to involve the children in building the garden and why it is important. Chapter 4 provides specific details about building each type of garden presented in the book—selecting construction materials based on your garden plan, acquiring labor and materials, and then building your garden.

Chapter 4 also covers plant selection and many related considerations, such as whether to plant from seed or transplants. Selection is discussed in relation to garden conditions, curriculum goals, and available resources. Native plants and plants to avoid are also discussed. Suggestions for using a greenhouse and preventing vandalism are included in this chapter.

Chapter 5 is about working with children in the garden. Here we share information about how to work with children to plant and maintain the garden. We address maintenance issues such as mulching and pest control. We explore the garden ecosystem, which involves organisms in the soil, insects and other small creatures, and animals, such as birds and squirrels. We discuss which of these are beneficial and which can be harmful, including suggestions for both.

Harvesting is the reward for all of the hard work you do in the garden. In chapter 5, we share suggestions for picking, tasting, and cooking activities. We also include ideas for using nonfood products and how to harvest and save seeds. We conclude with a discussion of how to document and share the work with others through displays and a culminating event.

In chapter 6, we focus on gardening with infants and toddlers. We have singled out this age group because of their specific needs and because we believe it is the group most likely to be neglected when it comes to gardening. We discuss the importance of relationships during the infant-toddler years, both in terms of human relationships and relationships with nature. We include specific suggestions for introducing infants and toddlers to the outdoors, plants, and garden animals, as well as stories from teachers who have been successful in doing so. Tips for choosing plants for this age level are included. We also discuss how you can educate family members about the importance of taking infants and toddlers outside.

We wrote chapter 7, Universal Garden Learning Experiences, with the goal of suggesting experiences that are not dependent on a specific plant or environment but can be done in any garden. Here you will find a wealth of activities, including tried-and-true recipes. Each activity description includes the concepts to be learned, materials needed, step-by-step instructions, extension ideas for diversity, and, if necessary, safety considerations.

The purpose of chapter 7 is to give you specific ideas for learning experiences both indoors and outdoors. These activities were designed so that they are not plant specific. In fact, many of them don’t even require a garden. You may want to go straight to this chapter and explore some of the activities before you begin building your own garden. These activities may help build interest among your class about gardening. We also hope that these experiences will spur your thinking as a class and inspire you to come up with new ideas of your own. This is only a beginning. Your garden will take you on a journey that is yours alone.

We hope that you find this book a valuable reference. Don’t be afraid to take it outside. Happy reading and happy gardening!

Chapter 1

Why Garden?

It is said that every snowflake is different—no two ever the same. This could be true of everything in nature. Every leaf is different, every pinecone, every flower. You don’t believe this? Go outside, and take a child with you. Try to find two leaves that are identical. There is more to be learned outside than there ever was in a classroom, and children long to be outdoors. Children are drawn to nature. They pick the tiny flowers growing in the grass, unearth the pill bug from underneath the rock, and capture the tiny toad hiding near the sand box. Children notice what has become old to adults. To children, the natural world is still a source of awe.

Children Need Nature

Unfortunately, children are spending less time outdoors than ever before, not only in the United States but all over the world. Changes in the past few decades have impacted how children play in ways we never could have imagined fifty years ago. Many of us grew up outdoors, whether we were playing in small towns, on city streets, or on farms. We ran, explored, made up games, chased lightning bugs, and dug in ditches. Ask any group of adults over age forty about their childhood memories, and you will hear fond stories of time spent outdoors. Sadly, this has changed.

Richard Louv, in his book Last Child in the Woods, called attention to the significant changes that have occurred over the past decades in children’s experiences with nature. Louv coined the term nature-deficit disorder to refer to the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses (2005, 34). A number of factors have influenced children’s withdrawal from nature, but a few stand out: increased interaction with technology, the disappearance of natural areas, and adults’ fears about letting children roam free or interact with nature.

The changes in technology over the past twenty years have been transformative. As authors, we couldn’t bear the thought of having to bang out this book on a typewriter. We remember our precomputer days and the painful process of retyping pages with errors and worrying about what would happen if we lost our only copy. And as teachers, we know that many new technological tools are amazing. They allow a child to immediately search for and identify the insect that is eating the cucumbers. They give her the opportunity to photograph it, type out her story, and then save or print it with the accompanying photograph. When we were teaching, we were unable to provide enough reference books to equal a small portion of what is on the Internet. And if we took photos, film strictly limited how many photos we could take and how we could process and print them. We appreciate what technology has given us, but we also know that this transformation has come at a cost.

From their earliest years, children are caught up in computers, games, and tablets. In the waiting room of the doctor’s office, a mother hands her infant her smartphone, entertaining the child with an app while they wait for the doctor. In an earlier time, the mother might have spent the time talking with the child to keep her occupied. Parents and caregivers are using phones and tablets to provide entertainment, and toy manufacturers are pushing this trend, creating screen toys for young children and products that encourage the use of screens in ever-younger children. (The toy voted Worst Toy of 2012 by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood [CCFC] was the Laugh & Learn Apptivity Monkey by Fisher-Price. It is a stuffed monkey with an iPhone in its belly marketed for children as young as six months. In 2013 the winning toy was an iPotty by CTA Digital, a potty chair with a stand for attaching an iPad so the child can use the screen while toileting. Shortly after awarding the 2013 prize to the iPad potty chair, CCFC disclosed that Fisher-Price had released a new infant bouncy seat with an attachment for an iPad.) Research done in 2003 found that children under age six spent about two hours a day with screen media, including TVs, computers, DVD players, and video games (Rideout, Vandewater, and Wartella 2003). It is likely these numbers would be higher now, as so many more opportunities are available. As their world has narrowed to the size of a screen, children have come to lack curiosity about the outdoors. They watch TV shows about exotic creatures far away but may be ignorant about the wildlife living in their own backyards (Louv 2005).

If children do want to go outdoors to explore, they face other barriers. Many of us can look around our communities and point to areas, once open and wild, now covered by housing developments, shopping centers, or office parks. As development has taken over, there are fewer open natural areas where children can play. Their world has been landscaped and cemented over, leaving fewer green spaces to explore.

In the past, children tended to play outside and to be a given fairly wide range in which to explore without adult interference. Children had ample opportunity to explore natural areas, build forts, explore creeks, and examine small creatures they came across. However, this radius has been shrinking over the past decades as parents keep closer watch on their children than ever before. Parents are afraid, citing crime, stranger danger, and even nature itself as threats to their children’s safety.

At the same time, people are concerned about the future of the planet as development cuts into natural areas and the habitats for many species disappear. Woodlands, wetlands, and rain forests are shrinking, and pollution is an ever-growing concern. Concerned adults want to raise children who are sensitive to these issues and who care about the earth. Wanting to be proactive, teachers wonder how they can best foster in children a love of nature and a disposition to be stewards of the environment.

One instinct is to teach young children about what is happening to the earth and to engage them in activities to help save the planet. David Sobel cautions against this approach. When children are asked to solve monumental adult problems beyond their comprehension, they are not only likely to be unengaged but may also develop anxiety and what Sobel refers to as ecophobia, a fear of ecological problems and the natural world (1996, 5). Sobel indicates that exposure to curriculum focused on solving environmental problems may actually result in disempowering children and leaving them with feelings of hopelessness. Instead, teachers should find ways to foster ecophilia, a love of the natural world, in children. Sobel says that at each stage of development, children desire immersion, solitude, and interaction in a close, knowable world (1996, 12). Look for ways to give children uninterrupted time where they can become deeply involved and engaged in the natural world, whether it is exploring outdoors or working in the garden. Giving children the gift of time to explore, observe, notice, and contemplate is essential to building a bond with nature.

Many children today know a lot more about animals in faraway ecosystems than they do about the animals in their own backyard. They watch TV and movies and learn about exotic animals. However, it is hard to form a true connection to animals you meet through a screen. As Louv points out, Such information is not a substitute for direct contact with nature (2005, 23). When children work in a garden, they observe closely the bees and butterflies that gather nectar from the flowers. They hold the ladybug they find resting on a leaf and examine with a magnifying glass the spider that has spun a web between the vines. On their hands and knees, they count the ants and study them as they carry food back and forth to their anthills. Children discover that snails like to hide under the stones where it is damp and that the bunnies are coming into the garden to eat the lettuce. Nature is real. They touch it, draw it, photograph it, and study it over a period of time. The story is their own story and not the story someone else has photographed, edited, and told to them. And because it is their own, it is woven into the fabric of their lives and becomes part of who they are.

Adults who care deeply about the environment cite two factors that have contributed to their love of nature: time spent playing in nature as a child and an adult who fostered love and respect for nature (Sobel 1996). An adult who introduces a child to gardening—who takes the time to slow down and be with the child as she digs in the soil, who sits inside the sunflower house, who shares joy in the dance of the honeybee—that adult can be the person who helps the child discover the joy and wonder of nature.

Physical, Social, and Emotional Development

The health of America’s children is at risk. For the first time in history, children face a future where they may face life spans shorter than those of their parents. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2007 parents reported that 9.5 percent of children between four and seventeen years of age have been diagnosed with ADHD, an increase of 21.8 percent from 2003 (2010). Obesity has grown at an alarming rate, and children are less physically active. Richard Louv (2011) argues in his book The Nature Principle that nature has transformative powers and that vitamin N (for nature) is an essential element in enhancing physical and mental health.

Research validates the important connection of nature to children’s healthy physical and emotional development. Nancy M. Wells and Gary W. Evans (2003) found that children who spend time in natural environments are more physically active and experience psychological benefits, including reduced stress. Andrea Faber Taylor and Frances E. Kuo (2011) found that children playing in greener environments had reduced symptoms of ADHD. Studies have shown that heart rate and blood pressure are lowered just by being in a garden (Cleveland Botanical Garden 2014). Even living plants in classrooms have been shown to have a positive effect on children’s behavior, emotions, and health. Being near nature creates what Louv calls the mind/body/nature connection that is necessary for our mental and physical health. Living things make people feel good.

Young children are sensory learners, and gardening calls to all their senses. The visual impact of flowers, vegetables, and living creatures pulls them into the garden, where they immediately reach out to touch the growing plants. They notice the fragrance of flowers and herbs, hear the grasses rustle in the wind and the hum of the bumblebee as she settles on a coneflower. They pick mint, perhaps tasting the herb for the first time in its natural state. Later they harvest vegetables and herbs to use in cooking activities. Maybe they try a new food for the first time because they grew it themselves.

Gardening is movement, and children need to move. They can’t help it. Ask a group of three-year-olds to sit still and then observe how much harder this is for them than running and climbing. We have always known that movement helps bodies grow, and now researchers have confirmed that movement is also necessary for brain development. A garden gives children a place and a purpose to practice both fine- and gross-motor skills. Children dig holes to plant seeds or seedlings. They pick up tiny seeds and place them in a hole or broadcast them carefully over a wide space. They collect mulch in wheelbarrows and spread it on the garden, then hold the hose as they sprinkle water over the growing plants. Weeding requires careful selection and removal of unwanted plants. Picking flowers takes skill and practice—pull too hard and the roots come up, cut too high up and there is no stem to put in the vase. Some flowers can be broken off; others need to be cut with scissors. When the children harvest vegetables, they must use just the right amount of pressure in removing the desired part of the plant to avoid damaging the remaining part.

Social growth occurs when children work together in the garden. They learn to listen to each other and share what they know. Because their experiences differ, they learn from each other. They develop social skills as they encounter situations that involve taking turns, compromising, and sharing. Patience and the ability to tolerate delays evolve as children learn that their turn does come when they work cooperatively with others. Children and adults all have to work cooperatively in the garden. Gardening is a group project, and negotiation is sometimes necessary when determining what to grow, who will do what task, how to carry out a needed job, or what to do with the harvest. Everyone has to work together to solve problems when they occur, building a sense of teamwork.

Children develop confidence as they work in the garden. They conquer fears as they encounter new creatures in their explorations, examine them, hold them in their hands, and return them to their homes. Even children who don’t like to get dirty are drawn to a session of planting flowers. They dig with trowels, and though they may don gloves or grab the stem of the plant to avoid touching the soil, they participate. The garden is responsive to children with disabilities or to those who are just learning the common language of their school. A good teacher can find ways to include everyone.

Gardens are beautiful. In recent years, many teachers have begun to recognize that institutional-style buildings and classrooms lack the aesthetic qualities that are necessary to foster a deep appreciation of life in children. The Reggio Emilia approach, which emphasizes the relationship between the children and their environment, calling the environment the third teacher, has been instrumental in this new awareness. Adding a garden softens the outdoor classroom area and adds a focal point that changes the quality of the playground experience. By bringing flowers or foliage cuttings from the garden inside, children and teachers can do the same for the indoor classroom. Some plants can be grown indoors as well.

Anyone who enjoys gardening knows the sense of calm that comes from handling soil, tucking seedlings tenderly away, watching the plants and animals that inhabit the garden. The garden demands that people wait. Plants grow at their own pace. The garden gives children opportunities to slow down and take time to explore in detail. Children who observe closely will notice small changes from day to day, large changes from week to week. They learn the need for patience and careful observation. They begin to nurture.

With gardening, teachers can create private spaces for children. Much has been written about the need for children who are in group programs for much of the day to have some privacy. In fact, while teachers occasionally take breaks, children are usually not allowed to leave the classroom. They are often expected to remain with a large group of people for nine hours a day, or even longer. As adults, we know the importance of building in time to be alone, to think, to observe from a distance. Garden spaces can give children an opportunity for privacy or alone time. Teachers can build a special structure, such as a trellis house, with this end in mind, or design the garden so that small, protective spaces are available. Whether the space is under a low-hanging tree, behind a bush, between rows of plantings, or within a carefully constructed sunflower house, children will appreciate the joining of solitude with the comfort of natural elements.

For some children, the peaceful quiet a garden offers and the interaction with the garden ecosystem may be particularly impactful, even therapeutic. Horticulture therapy is used in a variety of situations, from children’s hospitals to treating adults with chronic health and mental health issues. While teachers are not skilled therapists, they can take advantage of the restorative value that gardening offers. Nurturing plants is an empowering process. One of the key features in horticulture therapy is this element of control (Millet 2009). As children interact with the plants, they provide the elements that the plants need to grow. When the child plants a seed, he begins the life cycle of a plant. As he nurtures the plant, it responds and