There are many ways to create exposure to nature for your children. Take your children to a zoological garden to meet animals and plants; go out together to an outdoor park to fly kites; go to a farm together and experience the fun of gardening and the difference it can make for your child.
Gardening not only gets them outside and moving, but it also teaches them about how food grows. Gardening with children teaches them about teamwork and cooperation. Here are the top 7 reasons to get kids into gardening.
1. Engages All Their Senses
Gardening is an excellent introduction to their surroundings and assists in the development of their senses. This sensory introduction is specific and solid and will make them feel good.
How does it feel to have dirt on your hands? How does the color of the tomatoes look? How do freshly picked strawberries taste? Can you hear the crunching sound the carrots make? They can feel different textures, such as soil, seeds, flowers, wood, and petals. What’s more, they can also feel the flowing water and touch the roots of the plants if you plant with an indoor hydroponic garden tower.
2. Exercise Children’s Patience and Hands-on Skills
Children can get creative with their own unique gardens and plant their favorite vegetables and fruits. Even picky eaters can’t resist trying to grow their own veggies. They can see up close how plants grow and how food is transformed from seeds into something they can eat. Gardening teaches them the importance of sustainability and healthy eating and is a great way to help children learn about healthy eating.
3. A Great Family Activity
While gardening is certainly a lot of work, it can be fun for the whole family to do together. Everyone gets back to nature together, away from electronic devices, to get some fresh air and move their bodies. If you and your family live in a small apartment, hydroponic garden tower DIY can assist you with your gardening. Although hydroponics grows fewer varieties, it can meet most daily needs.
4. Physical Exercise
When we garden, it is the equivalent of engaging in an active aerobic activity. It also stimulates our brains and teaches our children that physical activity should be a part of everyday life and can be achieved by gardening as well.
The amount of exercise that kids get running here to water, running there to dig in the dirt, and having to walk over to gardening tools is actually quite effective.
5. Helpful for Emotional Regulation
Important experiences for children come from the process of gardening itself, where they learn to notice the subtle changes in the process. Research shows that when children are engaged in the activity of digging and planting, it greatly improves their mood.
When it all comes together, our children will have incredible confidence and pride. They look at the fruits and vegetables they have grown and experience that their hard work and efforts have paid off.
6. Stimulate Children’s Curiosity
Gardening promotes a spirit of scientific inquiry and stimulates curiosity in children. There are scientific studies that show that those children who participate in gardening activities will outperform those who do not in science subjects.
Do a little math game along with your gardening activities. Monitor how many plants are growing each week, or count how many flowers are on each plant. Enrich your child’s gardening experience by reading books about plants, visiting a botanical garden, or taking pictures of the plants you grow to keep track of them.
7. Enhance Responsibility
Gardening teaches two virtues that will help them throughout their lives: responsibility and patience. It is an important lesson in developing a sense of responsibility in children. For example, why don’t we let plants die? Why do we need to water plants? What does a child need to know to learn when a plant dies? The gardening experience will allow children to learn some concepts.
Growing any kind of plant requires daily attention, care and a certain level of responsibility. After all, when we plant a strawberry, it doesn’t immediately produce strawberries. We must wait for it to bloom and then wait for the strawberries to ripen.
Not Much Space. No Problem!
When your laid-back space is a concrete patio or apartment balcony, it’s hard to imagine how to create a rich garden. But you can plant veggies in containers.
Choose some eco-friendly containers with drainage holes in the bottom, fill them with potting mix, and choose seeds or seedlings to plant. Another option is a vertical hydroponic garden outdoor. With little expertise and careful care, you can grow lush flowers and vegetables.
Bottom Line
Children’s world should not only be steel and concrete, add excitement to their growth with gardening activities. Gardening with your children is a great way to spend time with them, get them interested in healthy foods, and teach them about where food comes from. Not to mention, it’s a fun and creative way to spend a day!
Whether it’s soil gardening or hydroponic gardening, outdoor gardening, or indoor gardening with an indoor hydroponic garden tower, if you start now, it’s not too late. As you can see, gardening is a wonderful and amazing thing to do. It should be a part of every child’s upbringing because it allows children to have fun with it.