Planting a Garden with Preschoolers

Are you ready for spring?! We cannot wait. Every single day Troy tells me what he wants to do when it’s spring and summer. Even though it did snow this week, we decided to do a springtime activity and plant a garden! It’s an indoor garden for now, but once it gets warmer, we’ll transfer the plants outside! Troy was SO excited to do this activity, and I think your little one will love it, too! Here’s what we used:

I got all the supplies at Target for around $7. I could’ve bought a kit, but decided to do it ourselves.

So we got all set up and lined up the 10 pots. This also served as a good counting activity. 🙂 Instead of using soil (which I couldn’t find anywhere at Target!), we used this concentrated seed starting mix. It probably is better to use this anyway!  This actually turned into a fun sensory activity. You take the brick and add 4.5 L of water! That seems a like a lot, but it worked out just fine.

I just love that look of disgust on his face…it did feel pretty strange, but somehow it was fun for him to play with.

Then we filled the pots with seeds: flowers, cucumbers, and carrots (which I read later that carrots aren’t the best to start indoors, but oh well!).

Fun Random Fact: The boys love cucumbers and spinach. They would rather eat those vegetables than pizza somedays. I’m not sure how this happened, but I’ll take it 🙂

We put the pots on a cookie sheet and put them near the sun. The boys have closets on either side of their room that has a small window inside. I put the plants next to one of the windows, since a lot of sunshine comes through them. Each day Troy is excited to water them. I love that this activity teaches him personal responsibility as well as how plants grow.

Have you planted a garden with your little one? Please share!