Gardening projects for kids : 101 ways to get kids outside, dirty, and having fun

Title:

Author:

Cohen, Whitney.

ISBN:

9781604692457

9781604693737

Personal Author:

Cohen, Whitney.

Edition:

First edition.

Publication Information:

Portland, Or. : Timber Press, 2012.

Physical Description:

264 pages : color illustrations ; 23 cm

General Note:

Includes index.

Contents:

Introduction: making gardens fun for kids -- Designing a play-friendly family garden -- Digging in with kids: planning, growing, thriving -- Pizza pies and pumpkin jungles: theme gardens -- Wings, webs, and whiskers: animals in the garden -- Garden adventures and games -- Art in the garden: fun projects for all -- Cooking from the garden: snacks, meals, and other tasty activities -- Preserving the harvest: from fruit leathers to silly dilly beans -- Let the festivities begin: garden celebrations.

Subject Term:

Gardening.

Gardening for children.

Added Author:

Fisher, John, 1970-

Document ID:

SD_ILS:2069301

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Library	Collection	Collection	Call Number	Status
Searching... Beale Memorial Library (Kern Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Children's Parent Collection	J 635 COH	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Sunnyside Branch Library (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Non-fiction Area	635 COH	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Tulare Public Library	Searching... Unknown	Parent's Shelf Display	635 Coh	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

"What better way to begin to explore the natural world than to experience the magic and beauty of a family garden." --Arden Bucklin-Sporer, author of How to Grow a School Garden

Many gardeners find that once they have children gardening goes the way of late-night dinner parties and Sunday morning sleep-ins. Raising kids and maintaining a garden can be a juggling act, leaving the family garden forgotten and neglected. But kids can make great gardening companions, and the benefits of including them are impossible to ignore. Gardening gets kids outdoors and away from television and video games, increases their connection to plants and animals, and helps build enthusiasm for fresh fruits and vegetables. Their involvement becomes the real harvest of a family garden.

In The Book of Gardening Projects for Kids , Whitney Cohen and John Fisher draw on years of experience in the Life Lab Garden Classroom and gardening with their own children to teach parents how to integrate the garden into their family life, no matter its scope or scale. The book features simple, practical gardening advice, including how to design a play-friendly garden, ideas for fun-filled theme gardens, and how to cook and preserve the garden's bounty. 101 engaging, family-friendly garden activities are also featured, from making Crunch-n-Munch Vegetable Beds and Muddy Miniature Masterpieces to harvesting berries for Fresh Fruity Pops.

Author Notes

Whitney Cohen is the education director at Life Lab, a nationally recognized organization that teaches people to care for themselves, each other, and the world through farm- and garden-based programs. Guided by her joy in being outdoors with children, she is the author of the award-winning Kids' Garden activity card set and a contributor to other garden-based learning activity guides. She presents hands-on garden education workshops to varied audiences, including schoolteachers, parents, college students, food service directors, and Master Gardeners across the country. Her expertise in gardening with children comes from years as an environmental educator, a middle school science teacher, a teacher trainer, and, most recently, a mother. Whitney and her husband, Tod, love nothing more than spending time outdoors with their son, Nation.

John Fisher has worked as a garden-based educator for most of his adult life, sharing teachable moments in the garden with thousands of children and adults. John designed and has maintained Life Lab's one-acre Garden Classroom site, has contributed to a multitude of garden-based curricula, and has created videos and websites on garden-based learning, both at Life Lab and at the University of California Santa Cruz Farm. His first memorable gardening experience was as a child harvesting cucumbers and tomatoes in his grandfather's garden. With his wife, Nadine, and four-year old son, Neli, John tends a small suburban garden plot of fifteen dwarf fruit trees, mixed berries, vegetable and cut flower gardens, and a small flock of friendly hens in Santa Cruz. Seeing his son searching for the ripest berries and feeding snails to their hens puts a smile on John's face.

Reviews (2)

School Library Journal Review

Gr 4 Up-Packed with ideas for creating kid-friendly garden spaces and activities, this book will be useful to parents, families, and group leaders. Excellent-quality, full-color photographs on almost every page show adults and children sharing, working in, and enjoying vegetable and flower gardens. The text is practical and down to earth in presenting ways to engage youngsters in the process of growing, harvesting, and processing food as well as how to protect their gardens from insects, toxic plants, water features, etc. The illustrated instructions and recipes are sprinkled throughout the chapters and then listed and indexed by ages and areas of interest, e.g., for getting messy; garden parties, etc. These guided activities are balanced with advice to let children play (making mud pies, providing a dirt pile for toy cars and trucks), recognizing the importance of balancing work and play. This is a useful and inspirational guide to introduce children to the fun of growing and eating delicious fresh food.-Frances E. Millhouser, formerly at Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

One of life's mysteries is why kids will go out of their way to jump in mud puddles but can't be bribed to pull weeds. One activity is viewed as play, of course, while the other is clearly work. Education directors at Life Lab, a California-based nonprofit group dedicated to farm and garden programming, Cohen and Fisher are also parents who understand the way a child's mind operates. Approaching every aspect of garden care and maintenance from that knowledgeable viewpoint, they demonstrate how garden-loving parents can teach children practical information through creative and interactive projects. Loaded with educational but entertaining activities such as Worm Bin Bingo and Seedy Mosaics, the book's crafts and games will appeal to a child's sense of play and whimsy, while the end results will have parents applauding the essential garden wisdom such projects impart. From planting the first seed to celebrating the final harvest, parents who rely on the authors' child-inclusive approach to gardening will reap rewards that go far beyond the produce bin.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2010 Booklist

Excerpts

Preface Think back. Can you remember a natural, outdoor space that held some magic for you? Maybe it was a lake where you discovered the peace of rowing a boat or skipping stones, or a field of tall grass where you played hide-and-seek with friends. Over time, all of us discover certain outdoor places where we feel both a sense of peace and the spark of adventure. In these places we feel that we are part of something immense and phenomenal as we remember our connection to the plants and animals, sun and rain, soil, and everything else that makes up the natural world. Now imagine if you were able to spend time in this place every day, year after year. Envision watching this place grow and change over time, just as you grow and change. What impact would it have on your life? How might this place influence your perspective, your decisions, your sense of yourself and the world? This is the gift of the family garden. As we harvest vegetables, run through the sprinklers, or gather with friends to celebrate the apple harvest, the family garden is a place where--day after day, year after year--we are reminded of our membership in the intricate web that connects all living things. A New Perspective on Gardening Many gardeners find that once they have children, gardening goes the way of late-night dinner parties and Sunday morning sleep-ins: right out the window. Raising kids and maintaining a garden can be a juggling act and, at times, a family's garden may be forgotten or neglected. In this book, we hope to make it easier for you to merge the garden into your family life, to engage your children in various aspects of your outdoor spaces, and to manage your family garden, no matter its scope or scale. It may seem counterintuitive, but kids can make great gardening companions. In home gardening, rewards may be measured in basketfuls of strawberries, tomatoes per plant, or even the diameter of the largest pumpkin. Once you involve kids, however, you may start to look for other rewards, such as the frequency with which you hear phrases like, "More kale, please," or "I watered my pea seed every day, and today it is being born!" Your children's love for the outdoors, their sense of connection to plants and animals, and their enthusiasm for fresh fruits and vegetables are the real harvest of a family garden. Returning to Our Roots Picture this. Sonya, age 8, is weeding her pumpkin patch. Out of the corner of her eye, she is surveying the corners of her family garden, looking for the toad she heard croaking last night. Her mother is pruning a shrub and giving the trimmings to Sonya's 6-year-old brother, who is collecting the big sticks for a fort and adding the small trimmings to their compost pile. Sonya's father is grilling garden-fresh vegetable kabobs for everyone, while her grandmother uses a field guide to identify the bird she sees playing in the birdbath. For centuries, children and adults have worked together to cultivate the land. In this century, however, the prevalence of large-scale farms and grocery stores has made growing our own food less necessary, and thus less common. Many families, however, are returning to their roots, planting window boxes, patio containers, front yards, backyards, and community and school gardens. Everywhere you turn these days, from big cities to small towns, you can find families revisiting the longstanding tradition of gardening together. What is behind this resurgence? Why have families started to trade pre-bagged salads and microwave dinners for seeds and trowels? Whether they are building miniature fairy homes from sticks and leaves or watering their very own tomato plants, kids in a garden have loads of opportunities to explore the outdoors, get physical activity, and gain exposure to fresh, healthy foods. As they see melons growing out of the soil or chickens laying eggs, they begin to recognize that food comes from plants and animals. As they lend a hand in caring for those plants and animals, they develop a sense of connection to the natural world around them. By weaving a garden into family life, parents and kids discover learning opportunities and make memories that will last a lifetime. We hope to provide a new generation of parents, grandparents, and other family members with the inspiration and information they need to get dirty, plant seeds, and harvest and enjoy the garden's delicious rewards with today's younger green thumbs. Excerpted from The Book of Gardening Projects for Kids: 101 Ways to Get Kids Outside, Dirty, and Having Fun by Whitney Cohen, John Fisher All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.