For Children

For Nursery and Reception (3-5 year olds)

In the Garden

Introduction/Starters

These activities can be carried out whether you have a large garden, a window box, plant pots or a yoghurt pot with cress seeds.

Setting the Scene
Children may be used to seeing adults labelling their seeds; writing what was or will be planted, both where and when. A gardening project is therefore an excellent place to foster early writing skills, as there is a definite reason for recording/labelling, together with the enjoyable practical activities of digging, watering and generally getting messy! The following activities can all be used to promote early mark making skills; classification; correspondence; diary work; design and layout of print on paper.

Writing Activities

You can download templates in pdf format for the writing activities, if you wish.

Activity 1: Labels

(31 kb)

Create the labels to be placed adjacent to the relevant plant, eg filling in a label, saying 'runner bean and attaching it to the cane.

Activity 2: Running Record

(37 kb)

Keep a running record of the garden's progress; eg Day 1 - 'Planted seeds'. You could model how to write this. You could also let your child make their own marks to represent what they planted. They could also write about anything else they saw in the garden, eg slugs and snails, or what the weather was like.

Activity 3: My Garden Centre Catalogue

(25 kb)

Using catalogues, newspapers, old greetings cards, children can cut out and make their own 'catalogue' with items which could be sold in a garden centre. They could label the items and price them.

Activity 4: My Garden Design

(24 kb)

Plan and label your imaginary garden. You might use nursery rhymes as your starting point, eg 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary'. You could think about planting real plants, or maybe make up your own plants - a hamburger tree; pizza plant; a dinosaur bush; a fizzy water feature! Do you want any play equipment in it? Maybe a giraffe climbing frame or a slide down the elephant's trunk!

Mary Mary

Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row.

Round and Round the Garden

Round and round the garden,
Like a teddy bear,
One step, two steps,
Tickle you under there!

Extension Activities

• Visit a friend's garden, a park or a garden centre. Look at and talk about labels, seed packets etc.
• Read stories about gardens, eg Mr McGregor's garden in the Beatrix Potter stories.
• Use television and DVD/video materials to compare with their own created gardens, eg Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men.

What will my child have gained from this experience?

An appreciation that writing conveys meaning, ie there is a purpose for writing. Also, that print is everywhere around them. (They might even gain some cress to go in their egg sandwiches!)