How Gardening Improves Your Child’s Learning Abilities
If I told you there’s a fun and easy way to boost your child’s learning abilities, would you believe it? It might sound too good to be true, but gardening can significantly enhance your child’s development. Let me explain how.
Stimulating the Brain
Gardening engages all the senses, which stimulates brain development. Using multiple senses for a task helps children learn more and retain information better. This sensory-rich environment strengthens brain connections and functions, aiding overall cognitive development. Research even shows that children who participate in gardening projects score higher in science achievement than those who don’t.
Gardening can spark curiosity and lead to questions about the natural world. Children might ask why plants need sunlight, how plants “drink” water, or why worms are beneficial for the soil. These questions can lead to discussions about soil composition, photosynthesis, and other scientific concepts.
The fresh produce harvested from the garden is packed with brain-boosting vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. Vegetables like spinach, garlic, and beets are known to enhance cognitive function, giving your kids a nutritional advantage.
Developing Skills Through Gardening
Math Skills: Gardening involves a variety of mathematical tasks. Children can calculate the time between sowing and harvesting, measure plant growth, and count flowers or fruits.
Literacy Skills: Gardening offers numerous opportunities to practice reading and writing. Children can learn plant names, read seed packets, and write labels or garden maps.
Cognitive Skills: Gardening enhances intellectual skills such as memory, analysis, and prediction. You can ask open-ended questions about gardening processes, compare plant characteristics, and discuss plant growth stages.
Visual-Spatial Skills: These skills help estimate distances and relationships, which are crucial in sowing seeds and distinguishing between plants and weeds. Drawing garden layouts and using directional language (e.g., next to, under, near) also enhance these skills.
Promoting Patience
In our fast-paced world, patience is a valuable lesson. Gardening teaches children that some things are worth the wait and that certain foods are seasonal. Discussing the growing seasons and making healthy food choices reinforces this lesson.
Start with easy-to-grow plants like chives, radishes, pak choi, leaf lettuce, marigolds, and sunflowers. Gradually introduce species that take longer to mature.
A Perfect Summer Holiday Activity
With the summer holidays coming up, starting a garden is a fantastic activity to keep your children engaged and learning during their break. Gardening not only provides a fun and educational way to spend time together as a family, but it also keeps kids active and outdoors, away from screens.
Join the Fun!
Start Your Urban Garden today to support your child’s development while enjoying a fun family activity. This 4-week online course is packed with fun activities where you’ll build, sow, and grow your first vegetable garden together.
See you soon in the garden!
With green love,
Émely 🌱
For more gardening tips and to ask your questions, join our free Facebook group, Our Garden Party. Or, for personalised advice, check out how you can work with Émely