How can you encourage your children to play in the garden?

Gardening can be more fun than you might think. As well as being something different for the children to experience, it can also be beneficial for their wellbeing and education. Together with Suttons, an online retailer and gardening expert, we take a look at the benefits of gardening for children and ways to encourage their participation.

What are the benefits of getting your children in the garden

Introduce your children to a range of benefits by encouraging them to play outdoors.

Worryingly, three-quarters of children in the UK spend less time outdoors than prison inmates! Children are becoming more interested in tablets and smartphones and tend to spend more time in the house. Gardening is a great way to get them involved with something different outside.

Sensory development is important in younger children, and exploring the garden assists with this. This could involve letting them play with the mud, splash in some puddles and get their hands dirty! It helps your child build their vocabulary too by becoming exposed to garden plants and creatures that they wouldn’t if they were indoors. Their interest can be captivated with brightly coloured flowers and scented plants.

Recent research has proven that gardening positively affects children. Some findings include:

After participating in a one-year gardening programme as part of their school curriculum, children aged 8-11 showed a significant increase in the ability to work in groups compared to those children who didn’t participate at all.
Children who grow their own food are more likely to eat fresh fruits and vegetables or at least express a preference for these foods.
Youth interns in community gardens reported increases in maturity and interpersonal skills.
Students expressed an increased understanding of ecology and responsibility to care for the environment.

Examples of activities

In any size garden, there are plenty of activities that you can do. As well as having structured games, it can be good to let your child take the lead on what they want to do in the garden. They might use their imagination to come up with an activity that you can both get involved in.

For children of an older age, why not create a bird feeder from scratch? This is easy enough to do:

Create two holes opposite each other at the bottom of the bottle, insert a stick through this and this will become a perch.
Make feeding holes close to the perch (not too big or else the feed will fall out).
Create holes in the neck of the bottle, you can pass string through here and hang the bottle from a branch.
Unscrew the lid and fill with seeds for the birds!

With smaller children, why not create a trail around the garden — searching for clues and tracks to see which animals have visited.

Growing produce

Other things that you can do in the garden include growing your own produce. This is a good way for children to get regularly involved in the garden and monitor their progress.

Grow trees from scratch

This is a long-term project, it can be fun and beneficial for a child to see how a tree grows and why.

Some trees that are easy to grow are:

Conkers. These can be collected from a horse chestnut tree.
Acorns from an oak tree.
Helicopters from a sycamore tree.

All of these seeds can be planted in soil and compost. It is likely that it will be around spring when the seed sprouts — you may have to transfer it to a bigger pot eventually.

Growing seeds

Seeds are a quick and easy way for children to see how plants grow. Vegetables such as potatoes, carrots and spring onions are all easy to grow and maintain. To encourage healthy eating, plant those that they like to eat so they can follow the journey of the seed from planting to their plate!

When children grow their own produce, they are likely to want to eat it too! There are other plants that are fun to grow. Suttons sells vegetable seeds and a range of fun seeds that have been designed for children. These include:

Cress — a fast-growing plant that can be grown indoors and outdoors and added to a salad afterwards.
Sunflowers — tall-growing so children can practise their measuring skills as it grows.
A Mimosa Pudica — (a dancing plant) that when it is touched, its leaves ‘dance’ and curl up tightly.

As we can see, the list is endless of what you can do and grow in the garden. Get outdoors and get involved with your child and you’ll soon see the benefits!