Good Stuff from the Teaching home :
Lessons in the Vegetable Garden
Gardening with your children provides opportunities to teach
and train them in several areas such as:
* Life Skills
* Academics
* Character
* Spiritual Life
Why Plant a Vegetable Garden?
Your family might want to consider gardening this summer to
realize some of the following benefits:
1. Economy
You might be able to save money on some foods.
However, you should set up a gardening budget that includes
supplies, tools, and water.
Hopefully you will break even or save money -- especially
after you have invested in tools that, with good care, do not
need to be replaced each year.
2. Health
Vegetables, especially fresh, pesticide-free vegetables, can
furnish a major boost to your family's health.
Choosing and growing their own vegetables can entice
children to eat more of this sometimes neglected food group.
3. Constructive Use of Time
Today, most children do not have the opportunity to spend
enough of their time in useful employment.
Gardening offers a valuable opportunity to use the many
hours while your school classes are out this summer in a
constructive way.
The accomplishment of growing food can encourage a child
that might be experiencing difficulties in other areas.
4. Sharing
In Ephesians 4:28, God says that we should work with our
hands, so that we will have something to share with someone in
need.
Sharing fresh vegetables with your neighbors or with older
people, who cannot grow their own, is a practical way to show
God's love to others.
5. Exercise
Gardening is an excellent way to keep your family active.
Working outside in fresh air enhances the health benefits of
exercise.
6. Family Unity
Working together can facilitate family unity as you
accumulate common experiences. This also gives each individual a
practical way to contribute to the family.
7. Other Lessons
Gardening will furnish circumstances in which you can
formally (through a unit study) and/or casually (as you "walk in
the way") teach lessons in all areas: life skills, character
training, academic, and spiritual. (See specific suggestions in
the articles in this newsletter and our next issue.)
Unit Studies
If you want to take a more formal approach to your lessons
in gardening, or want to augment your own lessons, consider one of
these unit studies.
Braden Road Farm's Gardening Unit Study and Award Program.
(Printed Format)
www.bradenroad.com Botany Unit Study on all aspects of plants.
AlwrightPublishing.notlong.com Gardens Unit Study by Amanda Bennett. (CD-ROM)
www.unitstudy.com/gardens.htm Unit Study on Plants. (Online)
www.home2teach.com/UnitStudyOnPlants.htm Spring Into Gardening Unit Study. (Online)
www.homeschoollearning.com/units/un...ng_garden.shtml Learning About Plants
Botany, the study of plants, is a natural and major area of
study when gardening.
Good sources of information abound in your own textbooks,
library books, Internet sites, seed catalogs and packets.
This learning opportunity provides exceptional motivation --
the need of immediate and practical information for a hands-on
project.
Depending on your child's age, read about and explain what
the plants in your garden will need in order to grow and produce.
Basic Plant Requirements
To survive, all plants require the following in varying
amounts. The range for each variety of plant can be wide or
narrow.
Read about each specific variety that you plan to plant
(usually in a seed catalog or packet) to find out the optimum
range of each factor for the plant to thrive and produce.
1. Light is the energy source for plants.
2. Warmth allows life-sustaining chemical reactions.
3. Water.
4. Soil nutrients in the right balance.
For more complete information, read article at
www.usna.usda.gov/Gardens/requirements.html Online Resources
Plant Structure, Parts, and Life Cycle.
(Good website for children: simple, complete, illustrated.
large type, test qestions.)
www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/gpe/case1/facts.html Plant Glossary for children.
www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/gpe/glossary/index.html The HortiPlex database of plant images, data, and links.
hortiplex.gardenweb.com/plants Burpee Vegetables. Use "Vegetable Quick Jump" menu on left of
page to read about many garden varieties.
www.burpee.com/jump.jsp?itemType=GA...TEWAY&itemID=13 Burpee Vegetables Nutritional Guide
BurpeeVegeNutrition.notlong.com Gardening with Young Children
Your most enthusiastic gardeners might be your youngest
children. With a few precautions, they can enjoy this
exciting and meaningful activity all summer and into the fall.
1. Keep it simple.
2. Give your child his own small garden plot. Even a container
pot or planter box will do.
3. Let your child choose just a few appropriate plants.
4. Limit time for chores to attention span and ability.
5. Garden organically so children can pick and eat fruit.
(However, wash vegetables first because of germs and parasites.)
6. Buy child-sized tools. Adult-sized tools are too awkward and
frustrating for children, and toy tools break.
For example, see Real Tools Sized for Young Gardeners
store.yahoo.com/nationalgardening/toolset.html 7. Have fun!
Online Resources
Kids Gardening Primer: 10 chapters cover Ages & Stages, Turning
Kids On, Design, Garden Structures, Themes, Plants, Small
Gardens, Maintenance, Safety, and Projects.
www.kidsgardening.com/primer.asp Organic Gardening with Kids.
OrganicGardeningKids.notlong.com Introducing Young Children to the Garden
Three-year-olds love to help with a vegetable garden by
poking seeds into soil which an older family member has prepared
for them.
We have given our small children little garden plots at the
edge of the lawn, where they can water their own plants with a
child-size watering can without endangering the rest of the
vegetable garden with their trampling feet.
Young children are thrilled to discover one of God's
greatest miracles as the soil produces a growing plant and
finally food. Even if their garden plots do not produce much,
this is an important first step in their gardening education.
As each child shows increased maturity and faithfulness, we
increase the size of his garden plot. This gives our children
incentive to develop their gardening habits.
by Joy Marie Dunlap
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