Ah, it’s the beautiful summertime when the sunrays are peeping through your window panes and you are ready to venture outside with your kids but you might be feeling perplexed as to how to keep them occupied?
Well, there are a bundle of incredibly fun outdoor activities that you can indulge in with your kids! One of the most satisfying and beneficial things you can do is start some planting activities for toddlers. It’s the best learning experience for them as you can instill some love for Mother Nature in your little one’s heart.
As a parent, what’s more fulfilling for you than introducing your little ones to the wonders of nature? As they say, “Why try to explain miracles to your children when you can just have them plant a garden”. It is indeed true as kids and a garden grown with love as well as the happiness of watching the plants in the garden starting to grow is priceless.
Undoubtedly, no activity can beat outdoor gardening with kids as they will enjoy this fun learning experience in the garden accompanied by some fresh air and closeness to nature.
Now you must be wondering what type of planting activities will keep them entertained and will cultivate a meaningful experience for them. Don’t fret as we bring you the round-up of kids-friendly outdoor garden activities for toddlers that will cultivate an all-round development in them, without burning a hole in your pocket.
So what are the best planting activities for toddlers?
1. Crafting Flower Pots & Planters and Rock Painting
Your little munchkin will have a blast painting the flower pots and planters with their imagination. This painting of pots can be of various types like thumb printing on the flowerpots, rainbow colouring of the planters or even painting the pots to look like bugs.
As most kids love doing arts and crafts, this is a great activity that will bring out their creativity and you’ll see your pots and planters revamped with your kid’s artistic work.
This activity will not only prompt them to stay in the garden but it will also instill a feeling of care in them as they will take care of the plants that grow in that painted pot. For this activity, all you need is some terracotta pots or some small rocks and acrylic colour bottles. You can even buy some rock painting sets here.
2. Creating a Sensory Garden
When it comes to kids, gardening is the ideal sensory activity. Check out our How to Create a Children’s Sensory Garden article to find out more. To make this happen, choose the plant varieties with beautiful colours, tastes, textures and some interesting aromas that will captivate their senses.
For instance, in your mini sensory garden, for taste, you can start by planting different veggies, herbs and some edible flowers like pansies, tomatoes, basils, radishes , etc., and allow them to tickle their taste buds. By this way, they will learn some amazing tastes, right in the garden itself.
For smell, you can consider planting honeysuckle, mint, lavender or sweet peas that have a very strong smell and can even perfume an entire area around the garden. This feeling of smelling will create a life-long scent memories in their minds because these growing plants will remind them of the quality time they spent with you in the garden.
When considering the sense of touch, think of growing plants with a variety of textures like soft flowers, rough bark or prickly leaves. For this, you can try out plants like lambs ear or different kinds of mosses as they provide a sense of various textures to explore. Just remember to teach your kids about the dangerous plants or weeds that might pop up in your garden.
Having a visually appealing sensory garden is something that will add an unforgettable sensory experience to your kid’s mind. For this, consider choosing some brightly coloured flowers such as sunflowers, lavender or marigolds. Growing these vivid coloured plants in your garden is an excellent way of teaching them about the sense of sight and observation.
Your mini sensory garden should not focus only on visuals but should also stimulate some sense of hearing. For instance, you can plant some bamboo shoots or consider hanging wind chimes, having some bird feeders or there are even some great solar powered water features. Doing this will help your toddlers learn about the different sounds.
3. Collecting Seeds from Flowers
This outdoor garden activity for toddlers involves collecting the seeds scattered around the garden.By encouraging them to collect the seeds,this activity will teach them the most vital lesson of how the plants reproduce the seeds from which it was grown, in a fun and easy learning way.
Collecting the seeds from the flowers or plants will hook them in the garden as they will be able to see the variations in different shapes and sizes of the seeds. Not only this, but they will have fun in spotting and collecting the seeds, which will be used again for sowing next year.
Keeping your toddlers actively engaged in these toddler planting activities will stimulate their curiosity about the outer world and they will start loving outdoors along with learning some valuable skills of patience, responsibility, care taking, self-esteem, environmental awareness and creativity.
Not only this, but the kids who are exposed to nature earlier, tend to be happier, healthier and possess greater respect for the environment.
Still thinking? Get ready to indulge in some fun-loving outdoor planting activities for toddlers and we are sure that they won’t want to come back indoors!
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