The Book of Gardening Projects for Kids: 101 Ways to Get Kids Outside, Dirty, and Having Fun [Paperback]

Whitney Cohen (Author), John Fisher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 29, 2012

Many gardeners find that once they have children gardening goes the way of late-night dinner parties and Sunday morning sleep-ins. Raising kids and maintaining a garden can be a juggling act, leaving the family garden forgotten and neglected. But kids can make great gardening companions, and the benefits of including them are impossible to ignore. Gardening gets kids outdoors and away from television and video games, increases their connection to plants and animals, and helps build enthusiasm for fresh fruits and vegetables. Their involvement becomes the real harvest of a family garden.

In The Book of Gardening Projects for Kids, Whitney Cohen and John Fisher draw on years of experience in the Life Lab Garden Classroom and gardening with their own children to teach parents how to integrate the garden into their family life, no matter its scope or scale. The book features simple, practical gardening advice, including how to design a play-friendly garden, ideas for fun-filled theme gardens, and how to cook and preserve the garden's bounty. 101 engaging, family-friendly garden activities are also featured, from making Crunch-n-Munch Vegetable Beds and Muddy Miniature Masterpieces to harvesting berries for Fresh Fruity Pops.

This step-by-step guide to working side-by-side with kids will inspire all parents to grow their own little gardener and to get dirty, plant seeds, and enjoy the garden's delicious rewards.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Cohen and Fisher will help your kids develop their green thumbs.” (Sierraclub.com )

"Full of ideas and projects for plots (or patience levels) of any size." (BookPage )

"Parents who rely on the authors' child-inclusive approach to gardening will reap rewards that go far beyond the produce bin." (Booklist )

"Offers fun ideas for things to do with children." (Philadelphia Inquirer )

"This hands-on approach makes school garden projects accessible, inexpensive, and sustainable." (San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance )

"Useful and inspirational guide to introduce children to the fun of growing and eating delicious fresh food.” (School Library Journal )

"A great go-to source of fun for years to come."

(ABCs and Garden Peas.com )

"Contains tons of unique gardening ideas…making this book a must-have."

(LearningTable.com )

"Offers pointers for designing family-friendly gardens, involving kids in the work of growing and encouraging them to eat the fruits of their labors.” 

(Akron-Beacon Journal )

About the Author

Whitney Cohen is the education director at Life Lab, a nationally recognized organization that teaches people to care for themselves, each other, and the world through farm- and garden-based programs. Guided by her joy in being outdoors with children, she is the author of the award-winning Kids' Garden activity card set and a contributor to other garden-based learning activity guides. She presents hands-on garden education workshops to varied audiences, including schoolteachers, parents, college students, food service directors, and Master Gardeners across the country. Her expertise in gardening with children comes from years as an environmental educator, a middle school science teacher, a teacher trainer, and, most recently, a mother. Whitney and her husband, Tod, love nothing more than spending time outdoors with their son, Nation.

John Fisher has worked as a garden-based educator for most of his adult life, sharing teachable moments in the garden with thousands of children and adults. John designed and has maintained Life Lab’s one-acre Garden Classroom site, has contributed to a multitude of garden-based curricula, and has created videos and websites on garden-based learning, both at Life Lab and at the University of California Santa Cruz Farm. His first memorable gardening experience was as a child harvesting cucumbers and tomatoes in his grandfather’s garden. With his wife, Nadine, and four-year old son, Neli, John tends a small suburban garden plot of fifteen dwarf fruit trees, mixed berries, vegetable and cut flower gardens, and a small flock of friendly hens in Santa Cruz. Seeing his son searching for the ripest berries and feeding snails to their hens puts a smile on John’s face.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Timber Press (May 29, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1604692456
• ISBN-13: 978-1604692457
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 0.8 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #84 in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Family Activities

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Little green thumbs August 27, 2012

By wogan TOP 50 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

This is a project book that is colourful, has lots of pictures that will give you ideas of how to get your kids out in the fresh air and interested in a garden.
It gives you plans on making a garden fun, designing a play-friendly garden, different garden themes, animals in the garden, games, arts and projects, cooking from the garden (although there are none for tomatoes, a huge lapse), all sorts of activities too. There is a metric conversion chart and an index.

What is wonderful about the pictures and the ideas too; is that they do not show gardens that are perfect - they look real and attainable. Stakes and strings are crooked, kids have muddy hands.
There are great ideas here, like using a spray jar to water newly planted seeds in starter containers. If you do not have a compost pile, this will encourage you to make one. There is a great activity illustrating what will decompose or not. Our family has really enjoyed personalizing their pumpkins, by scratching their names into them as they are growing, making corn husk dolls and birdseed wreaths. There is help with age appropriate activities, especially in the cooking section.

This is a very nice idea book, one that will be good for your family, grandchildren, the neighbors and friends.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than expected February 4, 2013

By H. Berndt

Format:Paperback

I checked this book out at the library last week to give me some ideas of ways to get my kids more involved in our garden. My kids dove into the book and starting marking pages of all of the things they wanted to do or gave them ideas for other things. my kids ages are 11,7,3. And there was something for each one in the book. Needless to say that is why I am going to buy the book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Permanent addition to home gardening library January 20, 2013

By S. Boothby

Format:Paperback

I checked this out from the library expecting to to breeze through it and forget it like so many kid related gardening books I've purchased or browsed. I was drawn in by the beautiful, easy to search through design layout. It's so cheerful makes me want to keep looking and reading. I was then wonderfully surprised by the amount of ideas and easy instructions: the only kind I can follow through since I'm not particularly crafty. Each project is beautiful, fun, and educational. There were too many "We can do this!" and "I want to do this!" projects for me to just take notes from the book before returning it to the library. I'm buying a permanent copy for our family's library to refer to for the next several years!