It’s that time of year when we are planning our garden, watching how our garden grows, or maybe you’re already enjoying some of your garden spoils. My kids love watching everything change as the season goes on and are full of questions about all of it.
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How Your Garden Grows – Berenstain Bears Grow-It!
Try as I may, I don’t always have the answers right away but I do find them whether I find them online quickly or books for them to explore and find the answers themselves.
Two of the grade three science curriculum (for a lot of Canada) outcomes are exploring soils, and plant growth and changes. My oldest will be in the third grade next year, but I’m not going to miss the Spring/Summer opportunity to teach as our garden grows. And to teach it to my three-year-old and soon-to-be first grader too.
While this is supposed to be for science (when I send in my paperwork next year) there are all these opportunities to work on math, art, and language arts as well. I have some science experiments you can do at home, as well as some printables for you and your kids to work on. For preschoolers to third graders.
The Berenstain Bears book Grow-It! is a great book that answers a lot of questions about growing plants in general and why they are important.
Soil Test
You can buy soil test kits for a few dollars or you can do a complete DIY soil test kit. We did both. You can read about it here, Soil Testing – Garden Science.
Journal How Your Garden Grows
Planting a garden, and watching and waiting while your garden grows will give your children lots of opportunities to journal about it. Choose to either journal daily, every other day, or as we will be doing, weekly. It’s up to you and your schedule/routine.
Worksheets
Labeling the parts of seeds, the cycle they go through, and more! Perfect for different ages and includes journal pages.
Another great book that you might want to check out is Nature Anatomy, I recently picked it up from our library, and within minutes I knew I had to buy it. The information and illustrations are amazing. I have it on my wish list on Amazon to buy when I do come back to school shopping this summer.