Fun and Educational Activities for Every Age
Bored kids these school holidays? Gardening is a fun, cheap, and eco-friendly way to keep them entertained while getting them outdoors and off screens. Teaching your children a passion for gardening helps spark their curiosity, creativity, and respect for nature. They can watch fascinating plants grow, explore garden wildlife, and learn hands-on about how food and flowers grow - all while having a blast. Still not convinced? Here's 10 Benefits of Gardening for Your Kids.
With a few simple ideas, gardening can be an engaging, age-appropriate activity that fills school holiday days with fun and learning. Here are some practical gardening projects for kids of all ages.
Ages 2-3: Exploring the Garden
Toddlers are naturally curious and enjoy simple activities like digging holes and pouring water. They are also fascinated by small creatures such as bugs, worms, and butterflies. Encourage your little ones to potter around the garden, explore different plants, and observe their shapes and sizes. Teach them where plants come from and how they grow from seeds into healthy plants.
Fun Activities
- Touching and collecting leaves, flowers, or pebbles
- Observing insects and butterflies
- Simple watering and digging tasks
Ages 4-5: Play, Pretend, and Plant
At this age, children see the garden as a place for exploration and imaginative play. Help them create hideaways or overgrown spaces, like a teepee covered in Climbing Beans or Sweet Peas. Introduce easy-to-handle seeds such as Sunflowers, Beans, Peas, or Nasturtiums for potting. On rainy days, keep them engaged with indoor activities like making a cress egghead planter or drying flowers.
Fun Activities
- Building garden structures and hideaways
- Sowing large seeds in pots
- Crafting with plants and flowers
Ages 6-7: Growing Their Own Garden Patch
Children at this stage can take on more responsibility by creating a small garden patch for annual and perennial flowers or vegetables. If space is limited, a miniature garden in a bucket is a perfect solution. Encourage fast-growing, easy plants like Radish and Marigold, or try colourful vegetable varieties such as Rainbow Silver Beet and Purple Carrots. Kids are often more excited to eat vegetables they have grown themselves. Wet weather is perfect for indoor gardening activities like building scarecrows, making personalised plant tags, or creating terrariums.
Fun Activities
- Planting and caring for flowers and vegetables
- Making decorative garden tags
- Indoor gardening projects
Ages 8-10: Engaging Projects for the Whole Family
Children in this age group can take on more engaging projects that benefit the entire family. A fun idea is a “pizza garden,” with a veggie patch planted with pizza favourites like Capsicums, Tomatoes, Oregano, and Basil. Shape the patch like a pizza, with wedge sections for each topping. Kids can help with routine gardening tasks like weeding and fertilising, but the focus should remain on fun.
Fun Activities
- Planning and planting themed vegetable patches
- Participating in regular garden care
- Family-friendly gardening challenges
Ages 11-12 and Beyond: Contribution and Creativity
Older children want to feel like they are making meaningful contributions. They may enjoy cooking meals using their own herbs and vegetables or working on school projects related to ecology, animal life, and plants. Gardens serve as “living laboratories,” helping kids learn practical skills and scientific concepts. By cultivating a love for nature early on, children grow into teenagers who respect the environment, people, and their community and may even discover a passion for botany or landscape design.
Fun Activities
- Cooking with homegrown produce
- Advanced gardening projects and experiments
- Research for school assignments on ecology and sustainability
Shop Our Children’s Gardening Range
Encourage your child’s gardening journey with our wide range of gardening tools, seeds, and kits designed specifically for young gardeners. Shop the range here.
