Garden Unit: Day 4 All About Seeds

All about Seeds

Thursday, we decided to do another “field trip” to the home improvement store to pick out seeds for our planting.  Before we went, we discussed the types of plants we could grow in our garden as well as when to plant them. I also explained how some seeds take longer than others and there may be special requirements for some types of food. For example, some plants can be planted inside seed containers and then transferred later into the ground.  For example, Peppers are recommended to start indoors in seed containers because of the length of time the peppers take to develop.   Other plants such as watermelons and pumpkins do not do well when transferred and should be planted directly into the soil.   We did not attempt starting seeds indoors, however, I can see this being in our future gardening adventure.

As soon as we got to the home improvement store, my son started to explain to me that some food grow on trees, bushes, vines or even underground.  I thought I was supposed to be teaching him,

Garden Unit: Day 3 Benefits to Gardening

Wednesday- Benefits to Gardening

            Day 3 consists of learning the benefits of gardening in a lecture style format.  The lecture and activities took an hour longer then I had planned.  My son had a lot of information that he wanted to say, and as long as he was interested in it, I wouldn’t stop him from continuing. We first discussed the more obvious benefits to a home garden.  This is the information that he came up with:

·      Food, we can eat (most obvious)

·      Spend time outdoors

·      Learn responsibility and hard work

·      Extra food can be donated to the poor

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Garden Unit: Day 2 Tools and Materials List

Garden Unit: Day 2

Tools and Materials List

      For the second day of our gardening unit, we learned about the tools we were going to use to garden.  This day took longer then an hour, because of my mini-field trip.  However, the field trip is not a requirement for the activity. To make this day more fun, we decided to do a mini “field trip” to the home improvement store.  I had set a little budget for a set of tools for my son.  He was excited to have his “own” garden tool set and was more interested in learning everything about the garden aisles in the store (even if it was not related to our home garden).  As we walked around the home Improvement store, we went down our list as I introduced each of the items and handed the item to my son.  He was able to feel and see how the tools are used.  Of course, I also let him choose some of the tools he wanted to buy. I attached a list of some of the basic information that we talked about as well as the tools my son evaluated.  I think learning about the tools is very important for the safety of

Garden Unit: Day 1 Introduction to Gardening

Day 1: Garden Unit

Whenever I have my son start a new project, I first want to know what he already knows about the subject.  I will write the words “What is gardening?” on a whiteboard and let my son list anything he can think of about gardening (for little children, the parent can write their ideas down for them). After he is done with his ideas, we will discuss his answers and I will add to the topic.  Some information that my son provided:

·      A garden is an area filled with plants that you can grow.

·      A garden needs soil, water, and good sunlight to stay alive.

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Introduction to Garden Elective

            As an elective, we choose to make a home garden.  I originally created these activities for a college class project, the project was a guide for homeschooling families in creating a home garden and learning about gardening.   I wanted to share with you, just in case, someone is interested in
creating a unit for this topic.  It definitely was one of my favorite units in homeschooling so far and I think my son would agree.  I have provided links to each of the activity pages.

 
Introduction:        
           If you are reading this guide, then you are probably either a homeschooling family or future gardener.  For those interested in gardening, this will only be a basic guide to understand the steps to creating a home garden.  This guide is more steered towards the education of gardening for elementary school children.  However, I hope you find some of the information beneficial to your
gardening adventure.

 If you are a fellow homeschooling family, welcome!  Homeschooling can be an extremely difficult task to do.  It requires an extreme amount of patience, understanding, and love mixed all in one.  When I first started homeschooling my son, I was a little unsure about the situation.  In fact, I

Hello everyone,

I am excited to share our journey into homeschooling.  I will be contributing many posts in the near future and will continue to post once weekly, if not daily.  If you have any suggestions, concerns, or comments, please feel free to contact me.  Thank you and have a wonderful day!

Jess