Learning starts from the moment a child is born, it doesn’t cease to amaze the being no matter what, that’s the power of learning and indulgence. Experts say the kinds around 10-12 have higher acceptance of surroundings and 10% of brain development takes place; that means you need to feed them with positivity in everything they do.
Starting with the garden, the best means of interacting with nature is playing in the dirt. There are 3 good reasons to let the kids do gardening work; it helps to boost the physical, mental, and emotional health of little ones.
Using your very own garden, you don’t need to go outside - making it safe and secure. You don’t need to worry about the weather since all your tasks are indoor. Pick up these 6 gardening activities to educate your kids and let them play along.
Reuse kitchen scraps
The first thing is that, create awareness of making use of kitchen scraps like coffee grounds, a vegetable-fruits peel will not go wasted as you can show them how it grows in a container full of potting mix or a jar of water.
The sight of those grocery-bought vegetables in garden pots gives them immense joy.
Let kids see how the roots grow
Growing roots are one of the miraculous sights to behold. Making the kids watch it over is overwhelming. For example, take a stalk of celery and color it with food color, then place it in a jar of water.
As the stalk absorbs the water, the color gets changed gradually, making it more convenient for the child to keep track of it.
Start seedling in carton box
The fun crafts with creating your own grow tray. Make use of the used egg carton as a seed starter and start planting in it.
If you had planted different plant seeds in every pot, then let the kids stick the name slip on the lid of the carton and track them to see which plant is planted where. Or let them search that plant picture in magazines, newspapers, so to let them stick it on the pot to see how the plant looks once grown.
If you had planted seeds in several other cartons, make it an experiment. Arrange them alongside the sunlight region and let kids see their reaction under different placement and how it will affect their growth.
After several days of watering, take a single plant out and put the plant in full display as to how the roots have sprouted. In a row, after every few days, pick each plant out and show them the germination takes place over time, let them make note of it.
Re-grow native plants using seed balls
Want to make growing easier!! Just go for a seed ball - a lump of seed rolled in clay soil, about the size of a marble. Kids can play around just by tossing the seed ball in a wet-cultured yard/ back garden.
The clay stuck to the seed gives them enough space-time to sprout and grow. Recommends says that if we use seeds of native variety, it enhances the susceptibility of the plant to grow stronger and healthier.
Make butterfly feeder for easy pollination
Attracting bees for pollination is a natural phenomenon, imitating is a lot easier than you think.
Take a plastic bottle, pour butterfly food (solution of ¼ cup of sugar into 1 cup of water) into it. Place rubber bands around the bottleneck and stick the flowers around. Place a cotton ball through a hole in the bottle lid and close the lid.
Later, tie a piece of yarn to one of the rubber bands on either side of the bottle. And hung it in an open garden, and let the kids watch those colorful visitors.
This sparks interest in your junior naturalist to explore more in the living world.
Make your ecosystem with a terrarium
Creating your own ecosystem is made possible!! Show your kids how the earth's ecosystem is interdependent on each factor with simple examples. The way the earth depends on light, temperature, and water is essential for balancing a healthy environment.
Climate Kids, a learning platform created by Nasa to educate the kids on the climatic effects on earth, also explains how this terrarium (mini-garden) helps the kids to build their insight into our environment.
With such experiences, kids sure are enticed to dig more about natural phenomena, visit gardens often and make explorers out of themselves.