Fun Gardening Activities for Kids

Want to help kids grow their emotional and cognitive skills, apply academic principles, get outside, and learn to love fruits and veggies? Get them into the garden!

Getting kids gardening during early childhood and beyond is incredibly beneficial — read about why in our interview with school garden expert, Christina Abuelo. It’s not just math and science skills that kids can learn as they experience gardening, but also social-emotional skills, problem-solving, nature-based nervous system regulation, cooperation, patience, and more.

Here are some ideas to kick off the fun and learning.

 

Play Garden Bingo

Every parent, teacher, and babysitter knows that kids love to find stuff! And there’s plenty to find in the garden. Bees, worms, birds, leaves shaped like hearts, leaves shaped like arrows, all the colors of the rainbow…these are just a handful of items you can put on a garden bingo card.

Download and print this blank bingo card, then fill in your own ideas. A game of bingo encourages kids’ curiosity and gets them exploring independently, and can help them learn about identifying different plants and wildlife.

 

 

 

Keep A Garden Journal

Keeping a garden journal is a great way for kids to feel more connected with the natural world. (And garden journals are great for grown-up gardeners, too! Check out our blog on creating your own garden journal.)

Ask kids to write about what they see in the garden: What kind of bugs and birds are in the garden today? Did the plants grow, get new leaves, or produce more fruit?

Give kids a framework or template for their journals and let them explore!

Here are some ideas for more fun activities for a kids’ garden journal:

• Drying flowers and/or seeds, taping or pasting into journals, and labeling
• Tracking plants’ growth and yield
• Measuring rainfall and watering schedules
• Drawing and coloring plant pictures
• Writing about how they took care of the garden
• Writing about how the garden makes them feel or what they learned.

 

Math is more fun in the garden!

…And it “sticks” better, too!

Everyone learns and retains information in different ways, but for most people, doing something hands-on to learn an intellectual concept really helps it sink in. For kids who are visual or experiential learners, a garden provides opportunities to practice math skills in a way that might be retained more effectively.

Measuring, mixing, counting, and calculating are all easy to do in the garden.

For kids who are just learning numbers, counting how many tomatoes one plant has produced or how many ladybugs are crawling on a flower is a perfect activity.

A little older, and they’ll love measuring and recording the heights or weight of plants and fruits (which they can record in their garden journals).

For older kids who are learning 4th or 5th-grade math skills, help them measure and calculate square footage of garden beds or containers.

When it’s time to learn averages and medians, kids can calculate the average yield of fruiting crops or the median height of tomatoes…you’ll find that math problems in the garden are endless!

For kids who are ready to handle plant foods, a parent or teacher can supervise as they measure, mix, and apply soil supplements (just make sure it’s a certified Food Safe, organic plant food like True Organic).

 

Vegetable and Fruit Tasting

Nurture healthy palates and encourage budding chefs by helping kids harvest, prepare, and taste garden crops.

Christina Abuelo of Barrio Botany has seen first-hand how empowering kids to grow and eat their own food helps them develop taste buds that crave fresh veggies.

She suggests a “taste test” activity where kids get to try different flavor combinations, then vote on their favorites and explain what they liked or didn’t like. Kids love to express themselves, and it’s important for their development!

Not only that, Christina Abuelo says, “There’s something about being the one in charge. Harvesting something and cooking vegetables themselves makes the kids more excited about trying new flavors.”

Give kids a few different vegetables with dips and let them express their favorites. (Christina Abuelo suggests carrots, lettuce, and cucumbers dipped in hummus.)

This works great in school classrooms or summer camps or in any group of kids who are learning to express their preferences, nourish themselves independently, listen to others’ opinions, and try new things.

Older students can have fun developing their own recipes, too!

 

Gardening With Wee Ones

What about really little kids? Yes, toddlers can learn and play and help out in the garden! Little kiddos are at peak curiosity age. Help them with some simple activities like:

• Watering
• Planting seeds
• Sorting and cleaning planters and containers
• Identifying bugs and plants.

 

 

 

Remember to Have Fun!

Don’t get caught up in making it fancy or perfect. Start small! Just the joy of being outside, playing in the “dirt” will spark curiosity and creativity.

Remember: gardening isn’t about perfection. It’s about learning, connecting with nature, having fun, making mistakes, and encouraging kids to explore the world around them.

 

 

 

What makes gardening with kids so special? Ask Christina Abuelo, and the answer is clear. “There’s something magical for kids about being in the garden,” she says. 

 

“Garden-based education can be transformational, particularly for students who are affected by trauma or have learning challenges.”

Volunteer Christina Abuelo is the founder and full-time manager of Barrio Botany, an initiative that builds gardens and garden-based education programs at high-poverty urban schools in San Diego.

“Usually, when a kid is disruptive in class, they’re taken to the principal for discipline. Now we see principals bringing kids out to their school garden to get regulated.”

True Organic is honored to be a donation sponsor of Barrio Botany! We’re so inspired by Christina’s work and wanted to share the story of this life-changing enterprise. So we sat down with Christina to get her take on gardening with kids — why it’s so impactful, how she made it happen, and what she’s seen over the years.

 

 

Building The Garden

When she moved to San Diego, Christina was searching for a bilingual program for her oldest child to attend. She discovered that she had missed the deadline for enrollment at most schools.

“The only bilingual school I could get my son into was in a very high-poverty neighborhood. But I met with the principal and he sold me on the educational program, so I signed up my kids to go to this school.”

When her son was in first grade, she asked if she could put a garden in the school’s yard.

“I didn’t have a very developed idea of what that would be like,” she laughs, recalling how complex building a garden at an urban school was — without funding or outside support.

Christina started with two garden beds in a litter-strewn part of campus. “The full build-out took 10 years,” she recalls. “My husband would come in on the weekends and assemble raised beds and we had tons of sweat equity from parents and students.” They added about two beds per year. Twelve years later, the School Garden is made up of 14 raised beds, three composting stations, a tool shed, a produce sink, and pollinator habitats.

One year, the urban agriculture class for a nearby high school lost their community garden space, so six more raised beds were delivered by crane, joining the motley collection of existing planting areas.

Over the last three years, Christina has worked to upgrade and install gardens at seven more schools, with assistance from nonprofit partners and community volunteers. Educators from three garden education organizations now provide garden-based education classes and after-school programs.

Although the challenges have been immense, Christina radiates joy when speaking about Barrio Botany.

Her advice for people inspired to build school gardens? Be ready for anything. And be patient. It’s worth it.

 

“This is my superpower! I can get kids to eat vegetables!”

Christina recalls first watching kids pick broccoli, an “advanced” vegetable, straight from the garden, rinse it off, and eat it. She was amazed!

“As a mom, watching kids eat a plate of cooked kale, I thought, ‘This is my superpower! I can get kids to eat vegetables!’”

She thinks the empowerment aspect helps bring down the barriers between kids and fresh veggies and fruit.

“There’s something about being the one in charge,” she says. “Harvesting something and cooking vegetables themselves makes the kids more excited about trying new flavors.”

She recalls how excited the kids get about eating vegetables when their voices and preferences are respected — like during a “taste test” activity in which the students got to dip their garden-grown veggies (cucumber, carrots, and lettuce) in hummus and rate their favorite tastes.

“It’s about voice and choice. Being able to express what they like is really important.”

 

 

 

Gardens help kids become environmental stewards while learning academic skills.

“Kids really respond to the garden on multiple levels: connecting with nature is a big one.”

Christina sees the kids learning to protect nature because they are developing an appreciation for plants, insects, and wild animals.

“Connecting with nature — finding a roly-poly, seeing the Monarch butterflies at the butterfly bush — seeing all these creatures helps them understand nature and ecosystems. When they grow up, hopefully they’ll be good environmental stewards.”

At the elementary school, the students learn horticultural skills like soil testing, plant identification, weeding, mulching, composting, vermiculture, and cultivation, plus art and cooking/tasting activities.

Students of the garden also learn math skills like calculating volume and square footage — which any gardener knows is involved in all the tasks of building, nourishing, and maintaining a garden!

“There are so many ways gardening-based education can support academic learning,” says Christina. She emphasizes that kids learn better when things are hands-on and experiential.

It’s proven: Studies show that students involved with school gardens generally take pleasure in learning and show positive attitudes towards education (Canaris, 1995; Dirks & Orvis, 2005).

“If you’re only learning about a concept like square footage on a piece of paper, it’s so much harder to conceptualize,” she says. “That physical act — using the measuring tape, recording data on a clipboard, and calculating the square footage — really helps the lessons click and stick.”

She simply asked her children’s principal, “Who’s studying square footage right now?” Turned out: Fourth Graders! So she asked the fourth-grade teacher if they’d like to be learning with the garden, and the class got to measuring and calculating.

“Garden education is so much easier for teaching a lot of academic concepts because the garden brings these concepts to life,” Christina says.

 

Gardening builds joy and resilience – in kids and grown-ups.

Beyond academic learning, the students gain more important life skills in the garden, like social-emotional learning.

A 2005 study of third, fourth and fifth graders showed that students who participated in a garden program showed increased self-understanding, interpersonal skills, and cooperative skills when compared to their non-gardening peers (Robinson & Zajicek, 2005).

It’s not bad for the emotional health of the teachers and other grown-ups, either. “I’m working 50 or 60 hours a week, but it’s hitting all the dopamine receptors in my brain. I love it.”

And remember: Christina Abuelo is a full-time volunteer!

She can’t emphasize enough how beneficial the garden is for the mental and emotional health of the kids. While she’s been working with school kids in gardens for over a decade, the impact of having a school garden was especially evident as students returned to school after COVID-19 closures.

“These kids were particularly affected by COVID; all the stressors were much more potent for them.”

Students at the schools Christina works with are affected by numerous challenges like food insecurity, poverty, homelessness, unsafe or crowded living environments, limited (or no) access to the outdoors, and other challenges — and so both kids and teachers needed more support, even before the pandemic.

And numerous studies show that these and other adverse childhood experiences negatively impact adult health and increase rates of early mortality — unless kids are given resilience building-opportunities.

“We started seeing that the kids and principals understood that the garden was a sanctuary.”

She describes students on the autism spectrum who run to the garden when they are having a hard time. They know the garden is a place of solace where they can manage their emotions.

“One kid was particularly dysregulated,” she recalls. “I found him in the garden and said, ‘We’re not having garden class right now,’ and asked him to go back to his classroom.

“He screamed, “NO!” so I asked, “Why not?

“He said, ‘Because I’m angry!’ So I gave him a watering can, and we just started watering.”

Christina sees how the most challenging societal problems impact our youngest community members — and she knows that society-wide, we just can’t solve all these problems all at once. But communities can help get kids in gardens, connect with nature and nourishing foods, and become more resilient.

“What we’re doing here is building resilience,” Christina Abuelo says.

To find out more about Barrio Botany, get involved, and get inspiration for starting your own garden for kids (whether in school or at home), visit the Barrio Botany website or check out Barrio Botany on Instagram.

–

Sources:

Canaris, I. 1995. Growing foods for growing minds: Integrating gardening and nutrition education into the total curriculum.

Children’s Environments 12(2): 134-142.

Dirks, A. E., & Orvis, K. 2005. An evaluation of the junior master gardener program in third grade classrooms.

HortTechnology 15(3): 443-447.

Robinson, C. W., & Zajicek, J. M. 2005. Growing minds: The effect of a one-year school garden program on six constructs of life skills of elementary school children.

HortTechnology 15(3): 453-457.

Merrick MT, Ford DC, Ports KA, et al. 2019. Vital Signs: Estimated Proportion of Adult Health Problems Attributable to Adverse Childhood Experiences and Implications for Prevention — 25 States, 2015–2017.

MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2019; 68:999-1005. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6844e1.htm?s_cid=mm6844e1_w

 

 

 

3 Easy Recipes for Your Summer Tomato Harvest

In so many parts of the country, ripe tomatoes are hanging on vines waiting to be made into salads, sauces, and snacks.  Tomatoes are nutrient-packed treats that boost our body’s health just as much as they delight our taste buds. They’re one of the only ways we get a dietary source of lycopene, an antioxidant that is associated with reduced risk of heart disease and cancer, healthy skin, and anti-inflammation.

Tomatoes provide us with so many important dietary needs:

• Fiber
• Vitamin C
• Potassium
• Folate
• Vitamin K
• Beta carotene

These colorful delights are so versatile, but sometimes we forget that there are more ways to eat them than just in salads and on burgers (although those are brilliant ways to enjoy a tomato!).Do you have an abundant tomato harvest in your backyard garden? Let’s get slicing!

Check out True Organic Tomato & Vegetable Food. It’s one of our most popular plant foods!

 

Stuffed Caprese Tomatoes

Inspired by Delish

Elevate your tomato salad with this creatively designed “compact-salad.” Sometimes called Hasselback Caprese Salad, this stylish dish is perfect for parties and barbeques — and impressing your friends.

What you need:

• Dense, medium-sized tomatoes
• Fresh mozzarella cheese
• Fresh basil leaves
• Olive oil & Balsamic reduction
• Salt and pepper to taste

 

 

How to make it:

• Pick the largest, densest tomatoes you can find.
• Slice vertically about two-thirds of the way through, so that the tomato still holds together.
• Slice fresh mozzarella into thin slices and insert into tomatoes.
• Add fresh basil…preferably from the garden!
• Dress with a drizzle of balsamic reduction, a sprinkle of salt, and fresh-ground pepper.
• Dig in! This one can be messy 😉

 

 

Baked Stuffed Tomatoes

Stuffed veggies are an ideal summer dinner dish for all occasions: dinner parties, busy families, or date night. Tomatoes can be trickier to stuff than peppers, because of their soft texture, but the ooey-gooey deliciousness is worth it! Just be sure to give your dinner guests plenty of napkins.

The best part? No measuring needed! Just gather these ingredients, plus any additional goodies you’d like to add, and build your own tomato creation.

What you need:

– Big tomatoes!

– Bread crumbs

– Fresh oregon & basil (dried works, too!)

– Cheese that melts nicely (provolone, mozzarella, or parmesan is perfect)

– Any other stuffing that sounds good to your taste buds!

How to make it:

– Slice tomatoes in half horizontally.

– Scoop out tomato seeds and pulp.

– Stuff tomatoes with breadcrumbs, cheese, and herbs, etc.

– Place on a non-greased baking sheet a few inches apart.

– Bake at 350° for 10-15 minutes; tomatoes should be soft and shriveled but still holding their shape.

– Remove from the oven, allow to cool, and enjoy!

 

 

Homemade Ketchup

Inspired by NatureFresh

Who doesn’t love ketchup? Store-bought ketchup is certainly yummy, but making your own ketchup will forever change your standards for everybody’s favorite condiment — and may inspire you to become your own home sous chef.

Store-bought ketchup typically contains lots of sugar, preservatives, and other additions, distracting from that “true” tomato taste. Make your own ketchup from scratch and you’ll never go back to store-bought.

 

What you need:

• 4-5 medium tomatoes
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 2 tbsp. white balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. smoked paprika…or other spices like oregano, rosemary, etc.: get creative!

 How to make it:

– Place tomatoes and ½ cup of water into a pot.

– Cook over medium high heat.

– As tomatoes start to soften, add remaining ingredients.

– Simmer for 10 minutes, or until tomatoes are mushy and skin is falling off.

– Remove from heat and place in blender

– Puree until smooth.

– Place blender in refrigerator for a few minutes. Be careful, the blender is hot!

– Pour puree through a fine strainer to remove seeds and skin.

– Return to medium heat for 5-7 minutes, simmer to desired consistency.

– Pour into a heat-safe container.

– Cool before serving!