Grow Your Own Food
This is a fun, messy and educational activity for older children helping them to understand how plants grow and where our food comes from.
You will need:
- Grow bags or compost
- Large planters
- Bamboo canes
- String
- Herb plants of your choice
- Tomato and Runner Bean seeds
- Watering Can
Activity:
Help the children pour the compost into the planters, discussing what you are doing as you go. Compress the compost and plant the herbs into one planter and then fill to the top with Compost, again compressing it before watering the plants.
Once planted discuss with the children what the herbs are called, what they smell and feel like, thus appealing to a variety of their senses.
Fill the next planter with compost and compress it Sprinkling over the tomato seeds and filling to the top with compost and again watering them. Continue this with the runner beans and any other vegetables you wish to plant.
The children can look after their plants, watering them when they need it and ensuring they are in a suitable place to grow, they will also need to tie to the bamboo canes when they start to grow and need support.
This activity allows children to watch plants grow and understand what is needed to help them grow. Their knowledge of where vegetables come from will be expanded through first hand experiences. This activity can also lend itself to developing mathematical skills and early mathematical lanuguage such as, full, empty, half full etc.
Areas of learning covered:
- Knowledge and Understanding of the World
- Mathematical development
- Personal and Social development
- Language, Literacy and Communication Skills
- Physical development
Keep Up To Date
Get activities delivered to your inbox for free. Just type your email address in the box below and you'll receive an email each time we add a new activity!
