A Fun & Educational Springtime Activity
Getting Started Gardening with Kids
Spring is finally here, and that means it's time to dig into one of our favorite activities—gardening! I love planning and watching my plants grow. When we left our home in Austin, leaving our plants (inside and out) was one of the things I was most sad about. That said, now I have a new yard to transform, and my oldest is just about ready to start designing her own garden—how exciting!!
My kids love getting their hands in the dirt, helping plant the "baby carrots," or throwing seed balls for wildflowers and then watching in amazement as tiny sprouts actually appear. Sometimes, they even grow into something we can eat. They love to pretend they are sneaky garden mice and pick various vegetables without me "noticing." Someday, they might notice how much I smile as the tomatoes "mysteriously" disappear as they giggle. I've found that my children are so much more willing to eat vegetables when they pick them or sneak them straight from the garden!
Gardening is just so valuable—for us and for our children. It can be a fantastic science lab, a source of creative inspiration, and a sensory-rich experience, plus a super valuable life skill. As a bonus, numerous studies now show the mental health benefits of time spent gardening. If you've wanted to get into gardening or love to garden but aren't entirely sure how to do it with your kids, I've got you covered!
In this post, I'll share why gardening is such a valuable experience for kids from a life and academic perspective, how to get started, and five easy tricks to make it fun.
Why Gardening is an Essential Life Skill for Kids
Gardening is so much more than just planting seeds—it's an opportunity for children to develop responsibility, patience, and problem-solving skills. If you practice Montessori, gardening is one of the earliest practical life activities because of its immense value in forming critical foundational skills. You will also see the importance of gardening in Waldorf in the early years to promote responsibility and encourage observing nature. Here's why it's a must-do activity for two of the leading educational approaches:
✅ It Builds Responsibility – Kids learn to care for plants, water them regularly, and understand that their actions directly impact growth. Harvard research supports that giving children responsibility is an important key to their happiness, and gardening is easy to scale up or down to match their developmental age.
✅ Encourages Healthy Eating – Children are far more likely to try vegetables when they've grown them themselves! There's nothing quite as delicious as a fresh sun-warmed tomato.
✅ Fosters Patience & Resilience – Unlike instant gratification activities, gardening teaches kids to wait, observe, and adapt when things don't go as planned. These are key skills that are becoming increasingly hard to build in our on-demand world
✅ Boosts Emotional Well-Being – Digging in the dirt is grounding, relaxing and naturally reduces stress for kids and adults.
✅ Develops critical Thinking & Problem-Solving Skills - At some point, at least one of your little plants will not thrive. Determining what is causing the plant to struggle and how to fix it requires questioning, experimenting, and observing,
✅ Teaches Sustainability – Understanding where food comes from and the effort that goes into it helps kids make environmentally conscious choices as they grow.
The Educational Benefits of Gardening
Gardening naturally weaves together science, math, reading, and art. You can engage your child in these crucial lessons without saying a word. Just let them ask questions and then find the answers together later. At a high level, here are some quick and easy ways you can tie the garden to each of these important academic pillars:
🔬 Science – Learn about plant life cycles, photosynthesis, soil health, and pollinators.
📏 Math – Determine appropriate planting grid and spacing, measuring plant growth, and counting seeds.
📚 Reading & Research – Reading seed packets, garden books, and journaling plant observations. Or bug observations. I've found my kids tend to fill their journals with all the bugs they can find in the garden.
🎨 Creativity – Designing the garden layout, painting plant markers, and arranging flowers.
How to Get Started Gardening with Kids
Starting a garden with kids can feel overwhelming, but it doesn't have to. As with most things, it's best to start simple—do as I say, not as I do. This is our first year growing in this climate, and we already have more than 100 little seedlings—and no garden to transfer them to yet. We may need to start woodworking and geometry lessons next week and build our raised beds!
The first thing to do is stop by your local library and grab some books on gardening. This will help build knowledge and excitement for both you and your kids. When we grabbed our books, we grabbed some that gave us ideas on making gardening more fun and what we could do with our plants once they grew. These two books were our favorites, and each child made a list of the top activities or foods they were most excited about.
Check out these picture books if this is your first time gardening together. And yes, picture books are great for older kids too!
Next, determine where your garden will be. Are you going to have a container garden with a sunny window? Maybe a patio of plants? Or, can you have a dedicated raised garden bed in your yard? One thing I learned is your first year - make sure it's easy to move your garden! The amount of sunlight may change in your yard throughout the growing season as the leaves come in on the trees. We started ours in a perfectly sunny spot in February and March, but it was almost all shade by June!
Finally, visit your local plant store and find some seeds or young plants you wish to grow. We start our seeds inside every year and purchase young plants from the local nursery. This helps us space out our harvesting a bit so we can enjoy more of the delicious fresh food for longer.
5 Easy Tricks to Make Gardening Fun & More Likely to Succeed
Try to keep these five things in mind as you get started, and you will have a more successful year:
Start small – Don't overcomplicate it! A raised garden bed, a few pots on the patio, or even a windowsill herb garden is perfect for beginners.
Choose Easy-to-Grow Plants—Start with low-maintenance plants that thrive on neglect, such as rhubarb, potatoes, snap peas, cherry tomatoes, sunflowers, or herbs.
Let Kids Take Ownership – Give them their own garden section or container to plant whatever they choose. Let kids paint rocks, craft wooden signs, or use popsicle sticks to label their plants.
Use Kid-Friendly Tools – Child-sized gloves, watering cans, and miniature shovels make gardening with kids way easier. It can feel silly at first to buy the tiniest rake ever, but trust me, it will save you from a very frustrated child who can't yet manage a full-size rake on their own.
Add Pollinator-Friendly Flowers—Planting wildflowers or marigolds attracts bees and butterflies, making the garden feel more magical. It can also help reduce pests.
Bonus tip for after you garden: Cook What You Grow – Plan simple recipes like garden-fresh salads, pesto from homegrown basil, or roasted carrots to reinforce the joy of growing food.
Final Thoughts
If you plant herbs or vegetables, definitely grab a cookbook from the library and get your kids excited about a recipe you can make together, like pesto from their basil or roasted potatoes.
Gardening with kids can be so much fun—and educational, too. It's a hands-on and sensory-rich way to learn. Plus, there's nothing quite like the excitement of harvesting your first homegrown foods!
So, grab some seeds, get outside, and start digging! What are you most excited to grow this year? Let me know in the comments!