Gardening Fun – Summer 2015

Research has proven that helping to plant and tend to gardens has many benefits for children. Through the experience, children get rich sensory experiences, are able to learn about science by observing the cycle of growth of plants and learn about healthy eating at harvesting time. It’s also really good for a child’s emotional well-being to be connected with nature.

During the summer of 2015 all four of our child care centers will be providing children with the opportunity to experience nature through gardening. Below are pictures and descriptions of each gardening project.

Wauwatosa’s Garden!
Children at our Wauwatosa center were excited to see their chives and strawberries from last season return, and our twos year-olds and pre-school classrooms were excited to plant tomatoes for this summer. The children also love checking on the flowers each day to see the progress of flowers opening. We love summer and are excited to watch our garden grow!

Oak Creek’s Garden!

Southside’s Garden!
The garden at our Southside location is based on the book “Growing  Vegetable  Soup” by Lois Ehlert.  Each classroom has one section of the garden they are responsible for watering, weeding and maintaining. Each classroom is growing a specific  vegetable mentioned in the book. Some classrooms planted their vegetables from seeds and some started their vegetables as small plants.

At the end of the summer, we will be making vegetable soup as we harvest our garden vegetables.