I grew up on a farm, and I remember the shock of some of our young friends when they found out that we ate food we raised ourselves. Kids of the past few generations are more and more out of touch with where there food comes from. One way to remedy this is to include our children in the garden.
Kids are tactile creatures, so it usually doesn’t take much convincing to get them to help you dig and plant. But while experience is the best teacher, it also helps to reinforce the joys of gardening through books. Here are six books for kids that will get them excited about growing things.
Green Thumbs: A Kid’s Activity Guide for Indoor and Outdoor Gardening by Laurie Carlson
This book has many simple, fun activities to get kids interested in growing things. Not only that, it has easy instructions about how to make garden tools from simple household items like milk jugs. This book is great for the beginning gardener who is just starting to wiggle their toes in the dirt.
Sunflower Houses by Sharon Lovejoy
This beautifully illustrated book is described as a “gardening primer.” Not only is it filled with practical gardening information for children, but the author interweaves crafts, stories, games, and more with its instructive text.
Roots Shoots Buckets and Boots by Sharon Lovejoy
Lovejoy delivers again in this lovely book of themed gardens for children, such as a “Pizza Patch,” circular garden divided into “slices” for tomatoes, oregano and other pizza plants. It includes instructions for Mother Nature’s Medicine Chest garden, a Flowery Maze, and nine more.
Carle is more famous for his animal stories, but this little book is perfect for tiny ones just learning about the life cycle of a seed. If purchased new, it also has a sheet of paper embedded with seeds that children can plant to observe the process themselves.
Wiggling Worms at Work by Wendy Pfeffer
It’s all well and good to learn about plants, but what about the creatures that make our gardens better? This informative book will likely appeal to kids who love wiggly critters and want to know all about them.
Magic School Bus Plants Seeds by Johanna Cole
In true Magic School Bus style, Miss Frizzle’s class actually goes inside the plants for a hands-on science lesson about how things grow.
Usborne Starting Gardening by Sue Thompson and Cherly Evans
It appears that this book is no longer in print, but is readily available from Amazon. Geared toward older children, it’s chock full of practical information that will help kids get started on their very own garden.
Thank you for this post! My kids LOVE books so we’ll have to pick up a couple of these. We have read a bunch of the Eric Carle books too but I didn’t know he had a garden themed book. On the must-get-it list now!