May 22nd, 2009 Time for play outdoors Posted by Melitsa in gardening, play activities, Seasonal play

Raising our children to be caring citizens without having to get a pet. Possible?

Recently I’ve been talking about social responsiblity by doing activities that promote sharing, doing activities we find hard or challenging, talking through our failures, perseverance, using imagination.

Are you crafty?

What are you thinking?

Rotating books- play activity really?

Last year we started a very small vegetable garden. It all started really well but in the dry climate of Colorado and perhaps the poor soil of my garden we didn’t yield as much as expected.

We had fun, learned lessons and now here we are back in May.

I was reading tasting garden  container garden and felt at ease that we’re not the only ones struggling with gardening but persevering still.

This year we decided to move towards more container gardening as we can get a good amount of soil and not rely on the yuk stuff in the ground. We asked lots of questions at our local garden center too so hopefully we are better prepared.

Potatoes  

spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers,onions, zucchini, eggplant and carrots. We did put some in the ground. We found some mystery seeds we think are sunflowers from last year so they went in as well.

The boys helped choose the seeds and plants. They helped pot up and water. They’ll be watering all summer- responsibility without the long walks

It’s that time of year. Why not start a small container garden with your little ones?

• Go to your local garden center and check out the childrens section
• Find some great kid  friendly tools
• Get some advice about what to plant and where
• Look out for fast growing varieties.
• Strawberries are a great hit- easy to plant and yield a lot.
• You don’t need to spend a lot of money. Choose according to your budget. One container start is very managable.

What better way to spend time outdoors than starting a garden.

Need more inspiration?

Scribbit: Gardening

What’s growing in your garden?

This post is sponsored by Treasurebasketplay.com: Eco-friendly green play activities for babies

Melitsa Avila is a former teacher, mother of three boys and military wife who talks about living an intentional play lifestyle using practical and everyday play activities to do with the under 5s. She publishes related ebooks & newsletters. Melitsa is the host and producer of a weekly Early Childhood radio show: Raising Playful Tots bringing parents and carers together with Early childhood practitioners. Thanks for reading!

Melitsa

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