You know how kids, especially toddlers and preschoolers, like to imitate mom and dad and do whatever grown-ups are doing? Like gardening! It’s amazing how kids can get engaged in playing and learning when it comes to planting, taking care of plants and flowers in the garden! Here you will find 33 ideas for gardening activities to enjoy with kids!
Gardening Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers
Children will explore gardening through:
- sensory play
- crafts
- learning activities
Vegetable Sensory Bin
Invite your child to peel, slice and chop real vegetables in our Vegetable Sensory Bin. Since this activity needs children to use real tools for peeling, slicing and chopping, it is more age appropriate for older kids. Also, adults need to supervise at all times. Details at: Best Toys 4 Toddlers
Spring sensory play tub with carrots
Dig for carrots and replant them in little planters in this Spring Sensory Tub. We love how kids get to use real carrots for this activity. For base, they used colored rice, but you can replace it with real planting soil and add more authentic feel to pretend play gardening. Details at: Nurture Store
Flower Play Dough Invitation
Invite your children to make Flowers from Play dough with this lovely invitation to play. You will need flower shaped cookie cutters and a bit of bling to make adorable flowers from playdough. Not sure about your kids, but my kids are always hyped when they see playdough on the table! Details at: Fantastic Fun and Learning
Simple Egg Carton Spring Flower Garden
Enjoy making and planting spring flowers in our Simple Egg Carton Spring Flower Garden. Created from mostly recycled and common household items, like egg cartons and drinking straws, kids will enjoy both crafting and pretend play. Details at: Best Toys 4 Toddlers
Harvest Sensory Bin
Explore farming and where food comes from in this Harvest Sensory Bin filled with different vegetables. The base for this tiny gardening sensory bin is created using playdough and colored rice. Lots of plucking and planting comes this harvest season! Details at: Mommy Evolution
Broccoli painting and color mixing activity
Ditch your paintbrushes and use broccoli instead in this Color Mixing Activity. You know how kids enjoy every single messy activity? They will for sure enjoy painting with broccoli (and their hands!) as broccoli is something they don’t use every day as a paint brush! Details at: No Time for Flash Cards
Veggie Printmaking for Preschoolers
Enjoy classic Veggie Print Making with your toddlers and preschoolers. In this art activity, they used carrots and potatoes for stamping. You can change the veggies used for stamps to make an activity fresh and new! Details at: Merri Cherry
Make Garden Markers by Painting Stones
Encourage kids to help out in your vegetable garden with these cute Painted Rock Garden Markers. They will love painting each and every of these adorable stone markers. After garden markers are dry, head together with kids into garden to plant and mark all the veggies! Details at: Adventure in a Box
Making Daisy Soup
Mixing up Daisy Soup is a great way to keep Toddlers busy in the garden. This water based sensory bin is perfect for hot spring or summer day when kids can get outside without worry about themselves or floor getting wet! Details at: Crafty Kids at Home
Zen Garden Sensory Play
Gardening can be different! Instead of a classic garden, explore asian culture and create a zen garden. This sensory activity will add an element of calm to your play. We love how kids get to use all the natural materials like rocks, shells and tree barks. Details at: Happy Hooligans
Painting with Vegetables
Get all of your kids involved in this Collaborative Art Project using Vegetables. Make it big! Get kids involved in selecting which veggies they will use for printing. After activity is done, you can hang this abstract piece of art for everyone to admire! Details at: Fantastic Fun and Learning
Bell Pepper Shamrock Stamp Craft
Have you noticed how when you cut a bell pepper, you get a four leaf clover? This is a base of creating a shamrock stamp for this easy craft activity! Stamp out Shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day with big green peppers! Details at: Crafty Morning
Miniature Gardens
Enjoy singing popular nursery rhyme as you make a Mary, Mary Quite Contrary Miniature Garden. This lovely gardening activity resembles a bit to a scavenger hunt as kids go around the garden and pick little treasures to place into their miniature garden box. Details at: Crafty Kids at Home
Garden sensory bin
Grow your child’s knowledge of all things gardening with this Garden Sensory Bin. This sensory bin uses real soil along with some plastic flowers and pots on the side for kids to pretend play planting. You can keep sensory bin outside during spring and summer and kids can come back and play when ever they want. Details at: Mess for Less
Learning about garden veggies
A project to learn what vegetables grow above and below the ground with a plain paper plate. This simple craft will keep kids occupied as they learn about parts of the plant and which of them is planted in the ground (roots) or above the ground. Details at: No Time for Flash Cards
Celery Stamping Rainbow Fish
Use celery to stamp out a colourful Painted Rainbow Fish. Scale will look just perfect! This simple craft is perfect to practice fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. And, you can do it as you work on ocean, summer or sea animals theme with kids. Details at: Crafty Morning
Fun and Healthy Vegetable Flowers Bouquet
Tempt your child to try something new to eat from a Fun and Healthy Vegetable Bouquet. This edible craft will provide a new type of learning and play to a child as they work on hand strength to make fruit skewers. Details at: Eat Amazing
Where Vegetables Grow?
Create a Burlap Gardening Board to teach your kids about where veggies actually come from. Kids will get to learn that not all vegetables grow on plants the way fruits do. Some grow under the ground and some vare the stems or flowers of a plant. Details at: Totschooling
Handprint Tissue Paper Carrot Craft
Craft a Handprint Tissue Paper Carrot. Isn’t it cute? This would be a great activity to do around Easter or early Spring when it’s time to plant real carrots. Or, why not try both with kids – invite them to plant carrot seeds with you and create crafted carrot while they wait for real one to grow! Details at: Glued to My Crafts
Bubble Wrap Printed Fruit & Veg
Use bubble wrap in this print making project to make different fruit and vegetables. Getting kids, who are often picky eaters, can be a bit challenging. You can get them interested in trying new fruits and veggies when you present them in a fun way, like with this craft. Details at: In the Playroom
Print these Free Vegetable Coloring Pages out for a quick rainy day activity. Kids can do some coloring while you prepare a lunch. And, this 10 page freebie includes fruits and not only veggies, even mushroom sneaked in! Details at: Easy Peasy and Fun
Gardening Activities from sensory to pretend play
Footprint carrot craft
Turn your child’s footprint into a carrot. Easy and quick art for spring or Easter holiday. And it makes a lovely keepsake! Details at: Fun Handprint Art
Peas and Carrots Simple Sensory Bin
As the spring and gardening season start, create a simple sensory bin with just Peas and Carrots. Simple sensory bins provide many opportunities to work on skills. Kids get to work on scooping and pouring, demonstrating and using the vocabulary words full and empty, fine motor practice and they get to enjoy pretend play gardening. Details at: Fantastic Fun and Learning
Vegetable Peel Sensory Bin
This Vegetable Peel Sensory Tub is perfect to occupy the kid whilst you prepare the dinner. They will love pretend playing cooking with real parts of veggies. You can also discuss how you can make a veggie broth with veggie peels and in this way, keep cooking cheaper but not any less tasty! Details at: Nurture Store
Vegetable Stand Pretend Play
Set up your very own Vegetable Stand in this fun pretend play activity. Great activity when group of kids is involved in play. We love how this activity uses fresh produce. The kids will be excited to have real food to touch and play with, and it can lead to new discoveries about vegetables. Details at: Fantastic Fun and Learning
Carrots in the Garden
Paint some muddy carrots using bubble wrap. With not-so-usual painting tools like rolling pin and bubble wrap kids will get to work with different textures to create lovely carrot patch. Details at: Crafty Morning
Sorting Fruit and Vegetables by Color
Have fun color sorting different fruits and vegetables using a free printable photos provided inside the article. You can come up with other ways to use these photos, like for a memory card game or inside a sensory bin. Details at: Powerful Mothering
Number Flower Garden
Work on number recognition in Number Flower Garden. Make flowers and add a number on each flower. Ask a child to plant them in order from smallest to largest number. Or any other way you want!
Dig for word carrots
Dig for Carrot Sight Words in this vegetable themed learning activity. Using bean based sensory bin and carrot cut-outs, kids search for different sight words on planted carrots. This sensory bin is very easy to set up. Details at: The Imagination Tree
Simple Sensory Bin with Frozen Vegetables
Babies will love to explore this sensory bin filled with Frozen Vegetables. Dig into your freezer for a baggie of frozen veggies, add spoon and fork and let the play begin! Of course, toddlers wouldn’t be called toddlers if some of those veggies didn’t end up in their mouth. Details at: Hands On As We Grow
Scrub Those Veggies!
Next we have sensory activity perfect to play outdoors in spring and summer! Kids get to scrub veggies in this fun water play activity. Water is always a huge hit with kids. And, they get to manipulate differently textured vegetables with their hands making this an awesome tactile activity. Details at: PreKinders
Fruit and Vegetable Hunt
Go on a Fruit and Veg hunt! Pick a free printable on the site (follow the link) and you will be able to quickly print and assemble a simple sensory bin where kids will have fun hunting fruits and veggies. Details at: Life Over C’s
Flower garden in the Sand
When it’s too wet to play out in the garden, make flower garden to play with indoors instead. We love how this sensory bin uses black sand for a base filler. Along with rainbow colored flower pots, it looks so lovely! Details at: Plain Vanilla Mom
Looking for more fun things to do with your kids? We want to recommend you our new book – Learn with Play (150+ Activities for Year-Round Fun and Learning)! You will find inside easy to prepare activities for everyday fun as well for all seasons and holidays! Here is a preview for you:
WHAT TO DO NEXT?
- Easy to set up water play for a variety of activities on hot spring and summer days.
- Playing with rice is fun too! Rice is a cheap and safe option as a sensory bin filler.
- To try something new, pick some of the activities with shaving foam!
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