Gardening with Children
31 July 2025
Gardening with younger children is a fantastic learning experience that nurtures their curiosity and fosters a love for the natural world!
There are many benefits to gardening with your child as well as ways you can support your child’s learning around gardening within a home environment. These are just a few of them!
Responsibility
Taking care of seeds, plants and gardens is a fantastic way to help support children’s growing sense of responsibility. It weaves in learning around what plants need to thrive and the role your child can help play in this. The reward of this responsibility can often mean pretty flowers or yummy kai (food) as well!
Maths and literacy
Gardening offers many opportunities to weave in maths and literacy skills. Measuring plant growth, reading books on plants together, creating plant tags and counting seeds are just a few of the ways to support children with their learning whilst gardening.
Life cycles and connections with the natural world
Gardening is a hands on life skill that can help support children’s relationship with the natural world. There is a lot of science involved in gardening such as learning about life cycles, the weather, eco systems, where kai comes from as well as what plants need to thrive.
Physical development
Because gardening is so hand on it also offers plenty of opportunities to support your child’s physical development such as hand eye coordination especially when planting, gross motor skills as they dig and weeds and of course it can help with small muscles in the hands - the more children develop these muscles, the easier it will be for them to hold a pencil and learn to write when that time comes.
At Evolve Education we value the benefits that gardening offers children with some of our centres even setting up a dedicated gardening programme above and beyond children’s daily involvement!
There are of course plenty of other ways to involve children in gardening at home if you do not have access to a traditional garden, the best part is that you do not need fancy equipment and you can learn alongside your child!
Community Gardens
If you have no access to gardens within your home environment but would really like your child to get hands on, check out your local community garden! Most communities around Aotearoa have these wonderful set ups and you can learn some fantastic knowledge and skills alongside your child by getting involved. Have a google to find out where your closest one is and who the point of contact may be.
Kitchen Herbs
If you do not have a garden space at home, you could also grow herbs for your kitchen on your kitchen bench or on a windowsill. Your child can still be hands on and involved in planting the seeds or monitoring the plant growth with the added bonus that your whānau (family) can enjoy fresh herbs in your kai.
Container Gardens
If you do not have access to a garden or the ability to create and maintain one at home, planting in containers can be a fun work around! Ensure containers have good drainage holes and are watered regularly as they can dry out faster than traditional gardens. You child can get involved by planting seeds, watering and feeding the plants and even decorating the containers. This can help support children in taking ownership and responsibility for the plants.
These are just a few ideas of how you can involve children in gardening if you do not have access to a traditional garden. Any way that you can involve your child in this life skill will benefit them in a multitude of ways! Give it a go today!
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