10 Amazing Gardening Projects for Kids to Try Today

As a father of four young children, I’m always looking for ways I can incorporate my interests into something I can do with my kids.  With our busy schedules, it can be a challenge to carve out time to spend with our children.  Having activities that parents can enjoy together with their kids simplifies the process.  Gardening is one of those activities that can be shared within the family and offers many possibilities to pique a child’s interest.

Why Should I get my Kids Involved in Gardening?  Gardening promotes well-being in so many areas of our lives that kids need.  It can become a mind, body, soul activity or at least satisfy one of those areas depending on what your child wants to do with gardening.  For example, with so many sugary unhealthy food options, it’s a challenge to get kids to make healthy food choices, but gardening can help kids develop an interest in nutritious foods.  More of our kids have established a sedentary lifestyle through the utilization of screen time, but gardening can help them get outdoors and be physically active.  Here are some of the areas that gardening benefits kids:

• Improving Motor Skills
• Increased Physical Activity
• Developing an Interest in the Outdoors
• Learning about Science and Nature
• Mental Health
• Recreation

How do I get my Kids Excited about Gardening?

Anyone that has spent any amount of time with a child knows that they have very little patience.  If something doesn’t catch their attention quickly, they’re likely to be easily distracted or bored.  Some of us adult gardeners are totally fine with spending hours being out in garden to water or weed.  One of the things we appreciate about gardening is how it helps us to slow down and de-stress. 

Unfortunately, kids don’t usually crave this desire to stop and smell the roses, it’s something developed over time.  If we want our kids to enjoy gardening, it’s up to us to help make it enjoyable through their eyes.   Consider these 3 key focal points:

Hands-on

Kids like to tune us out if we are rambling on and on about something.  We may want to share everything we know about fertilizers or soil composition, but giving our kids a gardening lecture is a surefire way to bore them.  Hands-on activities are going to help our kids find a better sense of gratification. 

Identifying small projects or ways they can receive instant results will go a long way.  Doing things like incorporating them in deciding what to plant, or having them build their own planter, are ways to integrate them.

Utilize Visuals

If you want to educate kids more on gardening methods, try using visual aids.  Coloring worksheets can be a great resource for helping kids to understand basic concepts of gardening.   Create a planting calendar with various pictures next to planting times. 

Help your kids set goals and mark their plants progress using things like stickers.  Reading books with kids on gardening, can help get them thinking about gardening.  Here are some great gardening based children’s books that your kids may enjoy.  Click on any of the titles for more info.

• From Seed to Plant, by Gail Gibbons
• How a Seed Grows, by Helene J. Jordan
• A Seed is Sleepy, by Dianna Hutts Aston
• Oh Say Can You Seed?  All About Flowering Plants, by Bonnie Worth
• Growing Vegetable Soup, by Lois Ehlert
• Flip, Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move, by JoAnn Early Macken
• The Vegetables We Eat, by Gail Gibbons
• Berries, Nuts, and Seeds, by Diane Burns
• The Flower Alphabet Book, by Jerry Pallotta
• The Little Gardener, by Jan Gerardi

Make it Fun

If you want any chance of getting your kids entrenched in gardening, it has to be fun.  One easy way to make something fun for kids is to turn it into a game.  Pretend that you are a bug catcher and go on a bug hunt to help kids learn about bugs.  Utilize arts and crafts to create a fun planter.  Have competitions on whose plant grows the fastest. 

How to incorporate a Child’s Interest into Gardening

After you’ve incorporated the 3 keys, consider your child’s interests.  As you begin to identify specific things that your child likes to do, it can help you focus on building common ground with gardening activities.  Something to think about – does your child care about food, beauty, learning, fitness, or just having fun? 

If your child is really into arts and imagery, then focusing their attention on growing, creating, and doing things that are colorful is going to be more attractive for that child.  So, instead of spending your time on growing vegetables, maybe planting a flower garden will be more fun for that child or instead of using a hammer to build a planter box, maybe painting a flower pot will be better suited for this child. 

Another child may prefer physical activity or creating things.  For this child, using gardening tools to help dig or rake is a better activity.  They may enjoy a wheel barrow to transport mulch with you.  I really like some of these kids garden tool options.  Click on any of the photos or links to find these products.

These are just a couple examples of how you can incorporate a child’s strengths, personality, or interests into gardening.  Once you find some things that they connect with, they will be motivated to continue gardening and you can explore other areas at that point. 

Here are some Ideas for Gardening Projects for Kids

We’ve discovered many ways to help get your kids interested in gardening and things that they can gain from gardening, now it’s time to put it into action.  These are some great ideas to immediately start incorporating your kids into garden time.

Sights, Sounds, Touch

This is a great mindfulness activity that can be utilized in the garden.   Kids can have a special journal or guide that they can chart or color some of the things they are experiencing in the garden.  One day they can focus on one specific sense or just generalizing all of them can work too.  Parents can engage in the activity to help connect with what they’re experiencing. 

Propagate Cuttings

My post: Rooting Cuttings in 5 Easy Steps, is a simple method to root fruit tree cuttings that would work great for kids.  Figs or Mulberries tend to root very quickly, so kids could create their own fruit trees fairly quickly.  Both of these types of fruit trees tend to start fruiting within the first year or two and tend to produce kid friendly fruit.  They are also great options to grow in a container which makes it easy for kids to manage and claim as their own. Here is my Complete Guide for Growing Fruit Trees in Containers.

Herb Gardens

One thing that I like about herb gardens is that they work great indoors.  We don’t always have a lot of space or the best weather conditions, but herb gardens can be maintained on a window sill or somewhere a child has consistent access to it.  The can create their own customized options or here are some to consider.

Photo Guide

Gardeners love to take photos of the beauty in their garden.  Photography can provide a fun opportunity for kids in the garden.  Kids could create a photo album either on a computer or with printed pictures.  There are many different activities that could be done in this realm.  Kids could be given a color of the week and take pictures of anything they can identify with that color in the yard.  Another possibility would be they could plant things and take a weekly photograph to chart the growth of the plant.

DIY Planter

There are so many unique ways to create planters that kids will enjoy.  I’ve seen anything from milk cartons, playdoh containers, egg cartons, newspaper rolls, and on and on.  If you’re kids like arts and crafts they will enjoy utilizing some of these creative options for making planters.  Pinterest is full of all kinds of options. 

Plant Unusual Things

It’s great to plant traditional seeds, but kids can have more fun with large seeds or unusual things.  An avocado contains a large seed that can be germinated in a glass of water.  Poke a few tooth picks around the seed so it will rest on the ring of the cup with half the seed immersed in water.  After several weeks of soaking it will begin to germinate.  Pineapples can be rooted and start growing by placing the cut top into a pot of soil.  Over a long period of time, the plant can reproduce a pineapple.  Keep in mind that Pineapple is tropical, so needs to stay in a warm environment. 

Make Videos

Technology is such a big part of kids’ lives that most of them have heard of Youtube.  Kids can have fun making crazy videos of their gardening adventures.  Just make sure that you are monitoring to ensure they’re following proper internet safety standards.  Many kids Youtube channels have become very profitable. 

Scavenger Hunts

These are really easy to set-up and are a blast for kids.  It’s a great way to educate kids on various things that are in the garden like bugs, flowers, plant types, etc.  Create a list of various tasks or things to identify and turn them loose.  Click here for a sample scavenger hunt.

Decorate the Garden

Do some projects that allow kids to add their special touch to the garden.  Then can create labels by using lettered beads to spell out the plant or paint decorative rocks to place around the garden area.  Kids can build DIY bird feeders and things to attract hummingbirds or pollinators.

Garden Prep

Here is the big one, incorporate them into the planting and care of the garden.  There are so many tasks that they can engage in from pulling weeds, to measuring distances on planting seeds, or helping to determine what needs to be planted.  Give them their own spot to care for or utilize their own container.  Kids will appreciate having their own watering can to care for their plants.

On a final note, for us garden lovers we can share our passion for growing things with our kids.  As we help our kids find joy in gardening, it’ll become an experience that will help us stay connected.  Instead of searching for ways to move our schedules around to find time to spend together, a mutual hobby will make certain bonding time is happening. 

Please comment below on anything that you’ve enjoyed from this post or things that have helped your kids enjoy gardening.