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Benefits of
Gardening Projects for All Kids
by Susan Kramer
Gardens
sitemap
Spaghetti
Squash in the Home Garden - 52nd Latitude
Pumpkin
(Hokkaido orange) experiment in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Compost
Leaves in Your City Garden and Build a Trellis Fence
Gardens
in Ojai and Santa Barbara Botanical Garden
Tomato
Factory - small hothouse experiment
Garden
Green Roof installation of sedums
Porch,
wildlife pond and streambed construction
Greenhouse
construction from a kit
Border
gardens, guerrilla gardening
Benefits
of Gardening Projects for Kids
Birds - Bluetits - Pimpelmezen growing up
Meditation Garden –
Design, Layout, Planting
Article
Getting out in the garden can be for more
than getting fresh air and exercise. When you include children with learning
disabilities in your garden projects you are creating opportunities for
learning.
Math and language skills and creative thinking are used in planning the use of
space in the garden.
For example, building a small vegetable plot begins with looking at your garden
space together to see how much space is available. Then using a tape measure
together, the size of the plot can be measured and recorded in a little
notebook to use at the table later.
When back inside at the table together, or outdoors at a picnic table, a drawing
can be made of the proposed plot from the measurements taken. Now you have used
math skills for measuring and drawing the shape of your garden plot, and
language skills to talk about what you want to plant in your new garden space.
Now that you've drawn the outline for the garden, divide up the space into
sections, perhaps long rectangular shapes for each separate kind of plant. Or
maybe you'd like to make another group of shapes like squares. And if you want
a visual effect pie slices are a fun shape to draw out and plant.
Take your drawings with you and go back out to the garden to lay out the
outline and sections for planting. Laying down outlines with twine or rope is
good because they can easily be changed, and this is a kinesthetic way to learn
the different geometric shapes. In the future when a square or rectangle is
needed, the garden shapes can come to mind, having been a
hands on project.
Doing the actual planting of seeds or seedlings uses math skills, also.
Counting out the seeds and laying them at specific intervals like 4 inches or
10cm apart teaches about equal spaces and these measurement systems. I use a
tape measure with both inches and centimeters on it - handy while both systems
are in use.
If your garden plot is 4 feet long it is an opportunity to point out that means
it is 120cm long. By the way, one inch is approximately 2.5 centimeters - for
all practical purposes. One foot is 30 centimeters, and one meter is 100
centimeters.
In summary, gardening projects with the kids are opportunities to use
math skills, particularly learning about basic geometric shapes and practice
with taking and using measurements. And talking about the whole process is
practice with communication skills and uses creative thinking.
email: susan@susankramer.com
copyright Susan Kramer 2001-2015