Annual plan of garden activities for children
Welcome to our garden classroom resources. Whether you are a parent growing veggies at home, a teacher running a school gardening club or a home education co-op with a community garden, you have come to the right place.
Here you will find a wealth of ideas to connect your children to the planet through gardening and to give them a rich nature-based curriculum to learn from.
Our best-selling books including The Garden Classroom, The Forest Classroom and our Seasons School curriculum are full of ideas for adding educational lessons to your gardening projects.
You can also use the month-by-month gardening guide below to give you a year-round programme of that to plant, grow, harvest and do in the garden.
Be sure to save this article as you’ll want to return to it throughout the year and do sign up for our weekly Seasons School emails for free lesson plans, activities, and bonus printables.
Year-round monthly guide for gardening with children
Follow the month-by-month garden guide below and lead your children through a happy, successful and educational year in the garden.
Use this index of quick links to get to the month of the year you are interested in: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.
Garden activities for children in January
It might be cold and frosty in the garden this month but there’s still plenty to enjoy. Here are some garden activities for January.
- What to plant in January
- Garden jobs for January
- What to harvest in January
- Garden activities for January including ordering potatoes, pruning trees, and creating winter art.
Garden activities for children in February
It might look like the garden classroom is sleeping this month but our garden activities for February see us getting potatoes ready and learning about daffodils. Join us!
- What to plant in February
- Garden jobs for February
- What to harvest in February
- Garden activities for February including preparing potatoes, washing seed trays, daffodil lessons, and making a weather station.
Garden activities for children in March
Can you feel the murmur of spring in the air? It’s nearly here! Here are seven important garden activities for March that you can use with your children to get your garden classroom off to a great start this year.
- What to plant in March
- Garden jobs for March
- What to harvest in March
- Garden activities for March including making a garden plan, ordering seeds, chitting potatoes, feeding your soil, spring cleaning, starting germinating and adding some zing!
Garden activities for children in April
Spring has sprung! Here are some important garden activities for April that will help you get your garden blooming and set you up for a great year of gardening with your children, including:
- What to plant in April
- Garden jobs for April
- What to harvest in April
- Garden activities for April including setting up growing frames, weeding, bug hunting, Easter planting and celebrating Earth Day
Garden activities for children in May
Spring is blooming in our garden and we are busy, busy, busy starting vegetable seeds. Here are some important garden activities for May that you can enjoy with your children.
- What to plant in May
- Garden jobs for May
- What to harvest in May
- Garden activities for May including keeping weeding, gathering your own water, making a compost heap, and taking literacy outdoors.
Garden activities for children in June
June in the Garden Classroom means strawberries! Such a treat to pick them straight from the plants and pop them in your mouth! Here are some other important garden activities for June that you can enjoy with your children.
- What to plant in June
- Garden jobs for June
- What to harvest in June
- Garden activities for June including pinching out tomato side shoots, playing outdoors, and bringing the outdoors in.
Garden activities for children in July
Summer is here and we’re starting to eat lots of home-grown food from our Garden Classroom. Here are some important garden activities for July that you can enjoy with your children.
- What to plant in July
- Garden jobs for July
- What to harvest in July
- Garden activities for July including feeding your plants, taking literacy outdoors, taking math outdoors, and exploring the smells of the garden.
Garden activities for children in August
Join our garden activities for August as we get busy planting seeds for our ‘second spring’.
- What to plant in August
- Garden jobs for August
- What to harvest in August
- Garden activities for August including starting autumn planting, making a bee house, cloud gazing, a blackberry study, and enjoying ice play.
Garden activities for children in September
Come and join our garden activities for September as we celebrate the Autumn Equinox and turn sunflower seeds into delicious crackers and cookies.
- What to plant in September
- Garden jobs for September
- What to harvest in September
- Garden activities for September including making a bug hotel, composting, making green tomato chutney, baking sunflower cookies and crackers, celebrating the Autumn Equinox, investigating sunflower seeds and taking part in an elderberry study.
Garden activities for children in October
These garden activities for October have us busy seed saving and celebrating apples. Join us!
- What to plant in October
- Garden jobs for October
- What to harvest in October
- Garden activities for October including saving seeds, hosting an apple festival, making an autumn nature table, and leaf art projects.
Garden activities for children in November
Join in with these garden activities for November as we tidy up for the winter, learn about our featured plant, the hawthorn, and borrow a fun activity from our forest school lessons.
- What to plant in November
- Garden jobs for November
- What to harvest in November
- Garden activities for November including gathering leaves for mulch, tool cleaning, leaf symmetry lesson, hawthorn study, 10 things in 10 minutes activity.
Garden activities for children in December
Join us in our garden activities for December as we celebrate the Winter Solstice and start to plan for the new year.
- What to plant in December
- Garden jobs for December
- What to harvest in December
- Garden activities for December including making plans, ordering seeds, celebrating the Winter Solstice, and campfire food.
Nature curriculum for children
You can also find a range of ready-made nature curricula in the NurtureStore shop. Each book is filled with hands-on, creative activities that teach the traditional school subjects through gardening, nature and time in the outdoor classroom.
The Garden Classroom offers a whole year of outdoors play and learning ideas, however big or small your outdoor space. Transform your science and math, reading and writing, imaginative play, and arts and crafts all through garden-based activities. Find out more about The Garden Classroom.
The Forest Classroom is a practical beginner’s guide to running a successful forest school. It includes lesson plans, activities, and fantastic printables that make it easy for you to teach a nature-immersed curriculum. Find out more about The Forest Classroom.
Nature Explorers: Forest is the perfect way to add reading, writing, drawing, and science to your forest adventures. Full of beautifully illustrated pages, this interactive nature journal will guide your children to create a unique science book about their own forest. Find out more about Nature Explorers: Forest.
The Seasons School Spring Curriculum gives you everything you need for spring learning, all in one place. With 50 engaging activities and over 30 pages of printables to make teaching so easy, it’s the go-to resource for spring. Find out more about Seasons School Spring Curriculum.
The Sunflower School curriculum is a full programme of learning, in rhythm with the natural growing cycle of sunflowers. With 28 engaging lessons and activities and 30 pages of printables it’s perfect for schools, families, and gardening clubs. Find out more about Sunflower School.
The Seasons School Autumn Curriculum gives you everything you need for autumn learning, all in one place. With 75 engaging activities and 50 pages of printables to make teaching so easy, it’s the go-to resources for autumn. Find out more about the Seasons School Autumn Curriculum.
This is such a lovely ebook! I love all of the activities you have put together for it!!!
Thanks maryanne!
I cannot wait to buy the book! Your photos are lovely and I’m sure the activity inspiration is, too! Congrats, Cathy 🙂
Thanks Chrissy!
Oh, my gosh, this looks great! Going through the video you embedded, it seems like the photos are pretty amazing, as well. I’ll have to put this on my list of books-to-buy. My daughter would love these activities!!!
Thanks Rebecca. The book is full of these kind of photos – showing each project. Hope you like it!
This really looks wonderful! You did an awesome job putting this together.
Hi,
Would like to get the e book for my two kids but we live in the Bahamas. So I was wondering if the gardening part, will work for our climet. Thanks
Hi Mishka, I think pretty much every project will work for you, because they are adaptable to suit your location, season and climate. The gardening ideas and science experiments can be done using the plants that grow well where you are.
Fantastic, will get it over the weekend. Did have one more question for ya. I am not up todate with computers, so sorry if this is a silly question. Is their anyway I can have this on my desk computer (so I can print) and my iPad so that I can move around with the info so that I do not have to print everything? Really hope this is not a tottally silly question. Thanks so much looking forward to it take care
Hi Mishka, I always say there are no such thing as silly questions! Yes, the book will arrive as a pdf that you can download and save to one of your personal folders on your computer. I’m guessing you have other files saved in a folder somewhere that you can access from your desk computer and your iPad? The book can be the same. You can also print all of it, or just particular pages, in colour or black and white, to suit you.
Hi Ya Cathy
The ebook is just FANTASTIC, perfect timing as the Summer Hols will be starting tomorrow for the children. Im really looking forward to do some messy play with the boys!!
Thanks for all the help, going to buy it know 🙂 Really looking forward Take care
Do you think the gardening ideas would translate to very hot and dry Arizona? I want to incorporate gardening into my preschool but our climate is so intimidating.
I am a Childminder and have downloaded your book. I have seen so so much inspiration I can’t wait and have already recommended to colleagues! I also look forward to receiving my weekly planner. Will this get sent every week or do i need to subscribe weekly?
Hi Sarah. I’m so happy to hear you are feeling inspired! Do let me know which project you decide to try first. The Play Planner is sent out weekly on a Sunday and you only need to sign up once, and then you’ll get a copy each week in your e-mail in box.
I’d love to review your Garden Classroom e-book on my blog… do you offer copies for review and/or for an associated giveaway?
What a wonderful book with more than a year’s worth of ideas! It can be kept on hand like a guide and used season after season. The ideas are so well explained and have tips and tricks that will help you really know what to do. This is a child – centered book and includes academics the children won’t know they are actually learning as they will be having fun! Thank you, Carolyn
Thank you so much for your comment Carolyn. I’m really pleased you enjoyed the book.
I’m off to buy one now!
Hope you enjoy it! I think The Boy will love the ideas in it 🙂
I appreciate you taking the time to create this post. It continues to be really useful to me indeed. Enjoy it.
When I try to purchase your downloadable gardening book special for $4.99 it says at checkout 9.99???
Did you enter the code GROW Diana?
I have just ordered my copy of your book, I was wondering how long the time period is between purchasing and receiving the email with the download link, I haven’t received it as yet.
Hi Alison, the e-mail should come straight through and will be sent to the e-mail address associated with the PayPal account you used to make the purchase. It’s possible it may end up in your e-mail spam folder. If you haven’t got it yet please drop me an e-mail (Cathy @ nurturestore.co.uk) with details of your Paypal e-mail address and I’ll get another link out to you straight away. Thanks for your interest in the book. Cathy
Hi Cathy,
I purchased the 52 Garden ideas from you, however my printer decided to die on me half way through printing and I only managed to print pages 59-112.
I have tried to download and re-print the missing pages, but I find that I am trying to be charged the full price again to do so.
I would be really grateful if you could allow me to have access to this again so that I can complete my book for the children.
The weather is just starting to warm up here and we are all raring to go!
Kind regards
Ann
Hi Ann. I’ve just sent you an e-mail with a new link so you can get all the pages you need.
Hi! I ordered this ebook through paypal on April 21st, 2013 and according to my paypal account my transaction was completed. I tried to email.you, but for some reason my email isn’t coming through to your email address! I was hoping to make the peg butterflies with my son for his grandmothers for Mother’s Day. If you could look into what has happened with my order it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Hi Tori, Sorry to hear you’ve had problems. I’ve just sent you a new link so you can download the book. If you have any further problems, please let me know. Hope you enjoy making the butterflies! Cathy
What age range is this appropriate for? I’m starting to homeschool my 13 year old and we are doing a garden as one of our first projects.
Thanks!
i purchased this on the 9/10/2013 but i am having trouble downloading the document. i am eager to explore the activities your help and assistance would be greatly appreciated.
kind regards carlee
I’ll e-mail you carlee and we’ll get this sorted for you. Cathy
This website is super cute and I’m anxious to see more. However, I’m wondering if your pages will fit my need for 2nd and 3rd grade. I’m looking for lessons in gardening for those grade levels.
Hi,
I ordered a book in 2013 for $18.93 I have a number:
5318-7848-2786-7917.
I still have not received!
If you could please follow this up and email me on:
ali.smelly@hotmail.com
Kind Regards
Alison Loorham
Hi Alison. The links to download the books were e-mailed to you on 15th September 2013. It’s possible they may have ended up in your spam e-mail folder, which is why you didn’t see them. In any case, I have just e-mailed you again with new links so you will be able to complete the download. Best wishes, Cathy
Hi Cathy, I have just purchased your ebook and I am only half way through but already my brain is buzzing! I have moved into a classroom with a bland deck and I was hoping to get my students and parents to collaborate on turning it into a ‘green’ space not only for Science investigations but as a nice place to play and learn together. I can’t wait to get started – it is a sunny Sunday here in Aus so I’m off to raid my garden and garden shed to see what i’ve got on hand to get the ball rolling…..!
Really hope the Garden classroom book is made available to purchase again!
Watch this space Amber!
I would LOVE to get a copy of your Garden Classroom book. I have been watching this space for quite some time and am very anxiously awaiting another release. Is there one in the works?
Regards,
Shalyn Gidge
Hi Shalyn, Thanks so much for your interest. There is something in the works – but not for another few months. hope you can wait that long! Cathy
**anxiously awaiting** 🙂