Exploring the Garden with babies – Garden, Flower, plant link party
We spend time in the garden come rain or shine and one of the things that I take time to do is explore and look at the plants and flowers with T and J.
We’ve written about the seaons changing – with gardening in the winter, hunting for spring and looking at spring changing to summer.
With J we have planted seeds ideal for toddlers as the seeds were enclosed within their own growing package so there wasn’t any little seeds that he would be tempted to put in his mouth.
We have worked on our garden near the house to create an area that is safe for babies and toddlers to play and also has enabled us to keep our wildlife area and will in the future allow us to expand and grow the area that the children play in. We put a fence and gate in so that the garden is enclosed and from the house I can see the children where ever they are.
When out in the garden we look at the plants and flowers – J and T are encouraged to pick dandelions and daisy’s to look at we will sit and pull the petals off and talk about the parts of the flower, or try to blow Dandelion clocks explaining that they are seeds and we need to get them to float to grow more dandelions. With flowers that are high up like our apple blossom and lilac I bring the children to the flowers so that they can touch the plants and learn what they look and smell like from close up.
I find it a challenge to grow seeds with J and T this year – I had great plans but even without growing our own we are exploring the garden and they are learning respect for the garden, seeing it change and learning about growth from what they see and we look at. Our garden is a living classroom for them to learn in about the world as well as play and enjoy themselves.
We are joining forces with these amazing bloggers to bring your a gardening — flower, plant and garden linky for the month of May and would love for you to link up your gardening posts to the party.
http://www.kitchencounterchronicle.com
www.theeducatorsspinonit.blogspot.com
http://livingmontessorinow.com
http://readysetread2me.blogspot.com
http://playfullearners.co.uk