Planting and growing

(Pre-school and Reception)

Planting in the garden is a great way to stimulate your child’s senses of touch, sight, sound, taste and smell.

Consider growing vegetables and fruit that will ripen, and they can pick and eat them. This will help them to understand the cycle of life and where our food comes from.

When you ask a young child where carrots come from, they'll often say the supermarket. On your child's dinner plate, the vegetables will appear as small chopped up circles or sticks. Knowing what they look like as they come out of the ground is important. Growing your own from seed to harvesting to eating is a rich experience. Gardening builds their knowledge about the world they live in.

You will need:

  • seeds
  • plastic cups or recycled containers – you may need to transfer your seed to the garden or a larger pot as it grows
  • compost or soil
  • water spray bottle
  • scoop to transfer soil to cup
  • labels to identify the owner of the plant

What to do

To plant the seeds, follow these simple steps:

  1. Scoop soil into the cup. Poke two holes on the top in the soil and place a seed in each one. Cover the seeds with soil
  2. Spray the soil with water
  3. Use images to explain to your child the rate of growth and how it will look as the weeks go by. Build their excitement and expectation
  4. Why not have a plant growing competition? Challenge each member of your family!

Top tip: Start with quick growing plants that they can eat, such as herbs, cress or salad leaves.

Skills your child will learn:

Gardening offers you the perfect opportunity to extend your child's nature vocabulary.

Introduce new words such as:

  • seed, bulb
  • water, sunlight, soil
  • trowel, spade, scoop, fork
  • grow, sprout
  • shoot, stem, flower, petal, leaf

Consider the following, which can all help to enrich your child’s experience of gardening: 

  • bushes, grasses, and plants that rustle
  • strong smells such as herbs
  • bright coloured flowers with soft petals