why garden?
Before we delve into gardening, you may be asking yourself why garden with children? To get the maximum use from gardening, it is important to take into account the reasons behind why we should be gardening with children to establish a clear focus and purpose. Some of the questions you may ask yourself are: “what do I want my child to learn from this garden?”, “how is this garden benefiting the students?”, and “what do I hope to accomplish with this garden?” Gardening serves as an excellent learning tool and offers many opportunities for real-world hands-on learning for children of all ages. Listed below are some of the ways in which gardening benefits children:
From birth, children learn to make connections and make sense of the world around them using their senses. With gardening, there are endless opportunities for children to explore and engage with all their senses. The garden can be seen as a calming place especially for children with autism and other sensory processing disorders to safely explore their space through their senses. Encourage your child to listen to the leaves rustling in the wind, to smell the fresh herbs, to look at all the bright and vivid colors from the flowers, to touch the soil, and to certainly taste what they have grown!
One of the best things about gardening is getting to eat what you had grown. Many children gain interest in eating fruits and vegetables simply because there is a sense of accomplishment knowing that what they are eating was grown all by themselves. That being the case, gardening can be instrumental in strengthening children’s connection to their food, as well as having a positive attitude to healthy food options. As a result, this can prevent obesity and other health problems.
As we all know, growing anything takes a lot of patience, time, and care. Throughout the process of gardening, children will learn the responsibility of tending and caring for their little plant friend. In addition, it teaches them to keep on going even if it does not look like the plant is growing because things take time to grow. One of the biggest takeaways for children from gardening is learning that the amount of work they put in is what they get out in the end, similar to their own education.
From learning about the many difference species of plants and insects that live in the garden to measuring and counting the area of the garden bed, there are lots to learn in the garden! Gardening can create meaningful connections for children and can easily be integrated into the curriculum across all grade levels and subject areas including numeracy, literacy, and science. The combination of place-based and experiential learning makes learning in the garden much more engaging and enjoyable for children. Check out the resources and lesson plans page for more information.
Research shows a positive link between pro-social behavior and gardening. Namely there are seven themes of pro-social behavior: 1) respecting nature, 2) respecting people, 3) sharing, helping, and taking turns, 4) friendships and community, 5) cooperating and teamwork, 6) demonstrating empathy, and 7) expressing gratitude. Evidently, some of the major benefits of gardening on pro-social behavior are that it encourages love and appreciation for nature, develop a need to protect and care for the environment and all living things, and encourages global citizenship and personal responsibility.
In relation to the development of pro-social behavior, gardening is a wonderful bonding experience to create a sense of community and new social friendships such as with their buddy class, parent volunteers, or with community partners. The increased peer cooperation and communication to reach a common goal provides opportunities for children to build on positive social interactions and teamwork. Subsequently, this also helps expand children’s vocabulary and engage in rich conversations.
Anyone who has ever worked with a child before knows how much energy children can have, gardening is an excellent and fun way to burn all those extra energy while staying active and building physical strength through activities such as digging, raking, and watering. Additionally, having direct exposure to the germs and bacteria found in the garden can help boost up children’s immunity against many chronic diseases including allergies, diabetes, and asthma.
Did you know there is a natural antidepressant called Mycobacterium vaccae in soil? Furthermore, study reveals that gardening have a calming effect on individuals; in fact, it significantly reduces levels of cortisol – a steroid hormone produced by stress. Evidently, gardening helps alleviate feelings of stress, tension, depression, and aggressiveness. In another report, it shows that spending time outdoors helps improve sleep and even experience less ADHD symptoms! Not only that, but gardening also helps boosts children’s sense of confidence, self-esteem, accomplishment, and belonging.