A beautiful quote from the ever charming Winnie the Pooh stories leads nicely on to talk about why gardening is so beneficial for our children
Finally, the thermometer is firmly into double digits.
I grab the keys, place them in the keyhole and unlock the back doors. Before I know it my two legged friends are sprinting across the grass to another door, only this one isn’t locked and they’re big enough and strong enough to open it all by themselves. Past the rake (oops), the lawn mower (oops), the hedge trimmer (oops)… they precariously step inside the depths of the shed! I can’t see them for a few minutes but I can hear them, a crash here and a bash there, “grab that up there”, “just step on that” “ Got it!”… And out they emerge…mini gardening bag in hand! Like clockwork they put on their gardening gloves, divvy out the tools (without any arguments on this occasion). Spade and Fork in hand, and let’s not forget their helmets, they head for the mud.
Like some scene out of The Fantastic Mr Fox tunnels are being dug and mud goes flying across the garden. Buckets are rapidly being filled with soil and worms. Snails are hovering perilously mid-air, quickly hiding in their shells before being gently placed back down giving them a chance to hide for safety before another flight can take off! The spades are digging deep and hitting something hard, hands are getting dirty to see what could possibly be standing in the way of their mud collection, stones of course. They pick them up and start competing for who can collect the most stones.
They seem more than happy so I head inside to tidy up the mess they made before they were released out into the wild of the garden, but then it all goes quiet outside. I return only to find that they figured out how to get the hose on and now their creating a mud bath. But fear not, one of them disappears into the shed again only to return with a broom triple his size – he starts sweeping the mud around the whole garden!
To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow – Audrey Hepburn
Across the garden my husband (I know it’s stereotypical but he loves it) is mowing the lawn. The kids start staring; one grabs the toy lawn mower and follows him around the garden one strip at a time, patiently, carefully and with intent. Next they all start pulling out the weeds, satisfyingly throwing them in a pile and watching it grow and build until it’s almost bigger than them. Then the replenish the bird seeds (which the squirrels actually end up eating!) and so it continues…
This is fun.
This is being active.
This is getting creative.
This is problem solving.
This is learning numbers.
This is developing motor skills.
This is freedom.
This is collaboration.
This is gardening.
I love these moments where we can all be outdoors and just be, either working together or in our own little worlds. Mostly I just let the kids get on doing whatever keep them happy, but the beauty about gardening is that there are lots of planned activities you can do with your children too. Take a look at this lovely website for some inspiration.
And to get started, this kit is a gem and comes with some seeds you can get planting right away.
Enjoy!
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