Green Thumbs: A Kid's Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening (A Kid's Guide series) [Paperback]

Laurie Carlson (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up | Grade Level: 1 and up | Series: A Kid's Guide series

Budding gardeners will learn what it takes to make things grow with fun activities that require only readily available materials.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Fun and creative.” —BC Parent

"Useful."  —earlychildhoodnews.com

About the Author

Laurie Carlson is the author of Colonial Kids, Westward Ho!, More Than Moccasins, and Kids Camp! She has taught preschool, primary grades, and children’s art classes.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press; 1st edition (March 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155652238X
• ISBN-13: 978-1556522383
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #76,076 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #6 in Books > Children's Books > Science, Nature & How It Works > Nature > Gardening

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun, but not entirely educational, September 14, 2009

By 

T. Chenn (NYC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Green Thumbs: A Kid's Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening (A Kid's Guide series) (Paperback)

We just received this book, and I am excited to try out a few of the ideas with my young children. However, I am a little surprised and disappointed by some of the experiments. The author goes into great detail discussing how to grow a "Mold Plant" from a slice of bread, and how to grow a "Yeast Plant" from baker's yeast. Mold and Yeast are from the Kingdom Fungi, not the Plant Kingdom. Also, it states that Algae is a plant. That is sometimes true, but not always. Some are grouped into the Kingdom Protista instead of the Plant Kingdom (bc they are not multicellular, yet they are still photosynthetic). If you are teaching your child about different kingdoms and scientific classifications this could be very confusing (and misleading)...especially since recent research has actually determined that Fungi are closer genetically to animals than to plants....but I digress.
I believe that many parents purchased this book in hopes of using it as an educational resource. It is even listed in "The Well Trained Mind" as recommended reading for science education. More fact checking needs to go into the next edition!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and full of great ideas!, June 7, 2008

By 

Michelle (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Green Thumbs: A Kid's Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening (A Kid's Guide series) (Paperback)

I love this book. Yes, much of the information can be found online, but I wouldn't have thought to look up some of these things.

If you're already an experienced gardener, this book may be a waste of time, but if you're a beginner and want to get your kids involved, it's great for motivating the 'budding' gardener.

This book is full of ideas for making gardening tools and materials using everyday household objects, like empty milkjugs (you can do many things with those!), muffin tins, 2-liter bottles, egg cartons, etc. There are recipes for natural, homemade bug sprays, pest strips, composting, and more.

I found it informative as well. There are bits of information about butterflies and how to attract them, weeds, worms, pests, helpful plants(what grows well with what) and critters, growing plants from leaf cuttings, tasty recipes using things you've grown, making herbed butter, starting your outdoor garden, growing seedlings indoors, making birdfeeders, gourd rattles, catnip bags, and lots more good stuff...and all using things you have around the house.

A great resource for the beginners and kids who like crafty things.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 101 Ways to Use a Milk Jug, January 28, 2009

By 

Crease in the Page (Hills of Northern California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Green Thumbs: A Kid's Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening (A Kid's Guide series) (Paperback)

I never knew milk jugs were so versatile! They can me made into shovels, totes, watering cans, scarecrows, bird-feeders... This book offers creative, inexpensive ways to teach kids about gardening and plants in general. What a great way to learn!

All the lessons involve a hands-on activity, not just for fun, but for learning. Kids learn how plants absorb water by putting food-coloring in the water of a cut white carnation. Kids learn that some birds help plants by eating bugs, but some birds eat fruit; hence, the milk-jug scarecrow. Seeds are sprouted in a baggy in a window to demonstrate roots, stem, leaves, and how it all starts. Then, of course, there is plenty of standard gardening activities: starting seeds indoors in paper egg-cartons, planting outdoors after frost, watering, composting, mulching... There are a few ideas I never would have thought of, for instance, collecting different seeds around the neighborhood just to watch the ways different weeds sprout and grow--in containers, of course.

This book has a very organic approach to gardening, teaching kids to maintain topsoil, make bug-spray from garlic...

I anticipate that my kids will be quite educated about plants and gardens by the time we finish this book. I also expect that my yard will look quite littered with milk jugs. But I'm glad this is not just a book about cutesy activities with plants. Real educational projects are usually a little messy; in this case, milk-juggy.