Gardening provides endless opportunities for children of all ages to get physically active and close to nature. Practitioners do not need to be expert gardeners. All that's needed is a little enthusiasm and the right tools for the job - to help children dig, plant, water and sow seeds. Settings may also want to offer resources like water butts or compost bins that will extend the opportunities children have for gardening and learning.
Julie Mountain, outdoor learning and play consultant and director of Play Learning Life, says that there are 'plenty' of reasons to do gardening with children over and above the desire to have a vegetable garden. She explains, 'The gardening is of less interest to children than the digging and reaping, the sowing and watching things grow. Some reasons to do it are for new language development, collaboration, physical development and hand-eye co-ordination, which will help with mark-making later on.'
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