Edible flowers
Some of the easiest flowers we had a lot of success with are: nasturtium, cosmos (only some varieties are edible), calendula, echinacea, sunflower, lavender and pansies, violas, chive blossom and camomile. They can be used in many different ways:
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Easy to grow vegetables
Pumpkins take a lot of space in the garden but are so impressive to grow. Courgettes grow just about everywhere as long as they have enough water. Peas and any kind ob beans bring prolific crop which most children love to collect and eat on the spot. All of those vegetables can have seeds collected and replanted again the next year. Real life life-cycle!
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Things to do with pumpkins:
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Other interesting plants
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Passiflora flowers are so impressive that I can't make myself get rid of it even though the root stock has overgrown the graft and we have no edible passionfruit! At the same time it attracts insects and makes interesting parts of a flower study.
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Gardening projects
DIARY OF A BEAN PLANT
This was a fun long term project. To record how our beans grew I have downloaded a printable diary from Twinkl. It begins with prompting children what plants need to live, what equipment is needed and the planting steps. The latter activity gave the children confidence when it came to the actual planting. Most of them were able to follow the steps independently. The diary has a weekly page (5 weeks in total) with a space for drawing, writing and recording the plant's hight. It was easy to use for all my students age 3 to 6.
Unfortunately, Twinkl is a paid resource platform but for me it was very convenient at the time. I have made a plant diary in the past. It was much simpler but still worked!
This was a fun long term project. To record how our beans grew I have downloaded a printable diary from Twinkl. It begins with prompting children what plants need to live, what equipment is needed and the planting steps. The latter activity gave the children confidence when it came to the actual planting. Most of them were able to follow the steps independently. The diary has a weekly page (5 weeks in total) with a space for drawing, writing and recording the plant's hight. It was easy to use for all my students age 3 to 6.
Unfortunately, Twinkl is a paid resource platform but for me it was very convenient at the time. I have made a plant diary in the past. It was much simpler but still worked!
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RUNNER BEAN TEEPEE
For this project you need reasonable amount of space in your garden. For a structure I have used a ready made bamboo teepee from the garden centre. The main benefit of using it was that it required no effort to put up and we have been reusing it ever since. The only disadvantage of a ready made structure is that it can't be made bigger. There are many different ways to create a structure for the beans to climb and a quick look through your search engine will give you plenty of ideas.
This project serves double purpose - it makes a lovely 'house' to sit in and it provide a lot of produce! We have used two different types of beans which blossomed in different colours and had different colour pods and seeds. We ate some and we left some to mature and dry. The dry beans we have used for planting the next year and for open-ended play in the garden (podding, crushing, counting or making dinosaur egg nests).
For this project you need reasonable amount of space in your garden. For a structure I have used a ready made bamboo teepee from the garden centre. The main benefit of using it was that it required no effort to put up and we have been reusing it ever since. The only disadvantage of a ready made structure is that it can't be made bigger. There are many different ways to create a structure for the beans to climb and a quick look through your search engine will give you plenty of ideas.
This project serves double purpose - it makes a lovely 'house' to sit in and it provide a lot of produce! We have used two different types of beans which blossomed in different colours and had different colour pods and seeds. We ate some and we left some to mature and dry. The dry beans we have used for planting the next year and for open-ended play in the garden (podding, crushing, counting or making dinosaur egg nests).
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SUNFLOWER HOUSE
The whole project was based on the book Sunflower House. The main character in the story plants the seeds in a circle, looks after the plants, observes how they change and invites his friends to play in the house. To accelerate the growing process we have germinated the Russian sunflower seeds in the pots indoors. The sunflowers are really beautiful feature in the garden and are great for adding structure. Each flower creates a mini world for various insects and provides great learning opportunities.
ALERT - If you have lots of birds in your garden it might be a good idea to hang some ribbons or a net to stop them digging out the seeds. Our second attempt at growing a sunflower house by placing seeds directly in the garden produced only ONE sunflower!
The whole project was based on the book Sunflower House. The main character in the story plants the seeds in a circle, looks after the plants, observes how they change and invites his friends to play in the house. To accelerate the growing process we have germinated the Russian sunflower seeds in the pots indoors. The sunflowers are really beautiful feature in the garden and are great for adding structure. Each flower creates a mini world for various insects and provides great learning opportunities.
ALERT - If you have lots of birds in your garden it might be a good idea to hang some ribbons or a net to stop them digging out the seeds. Our second attempt at growing a sunflower house by placing seeds directly in the garden produced only ONE sunflower!
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Here are some ideas for using the abundance of sunflower seeds:
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Learning opportunities:
Bird feeder
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