The development of your child depends on you not only allowing your child lots of time to play, but encouraging it. Give a small child a bowl of fruit and have them pick the pieces out with their fingers or teach them to use a spoon or fork. “It is wonderful for building a child’s sense of competence, as they engage in a real life activity that they might have previously seen as only for adults,” she explains. Your little ones are constantly growing, learning and evolving, every single day of their lives. As we integrate them into our hobby they can gain the benefits that will help them to learn and grow. Confidence is crucial for the healthy development of any child. Gardening engages all sorts of senses and helps children to develop and recognise them without even realising. Get creative. Guardian Early Learning Centres are teaching children about nature and gardening and watching them thrive. Eating healthy food is vital for brain and body development but it can be hard at times to get kids to eat those fruits and veggies. Children develop new skills and learn about science and nature from growing their own food. Gardening is a healthy, fun activity for children. Not only will our kids enhance their development, but they’ll gain a deeper appreciation for nature, and build a stronger bond with you. Petal Power: Why Is Gardening So Good For Our Mental Health? Now the warmer weather has arrived, what better way to spend your time than enjoying some gardening. How gardening helps a child's development GARDENING can help boost a child’s development and make them happier. Posted May 13, 2015 Who knows, maybe someday they’ll be teaching their gardening hobby to kids of their own. But we're just starting to understand what the experience of gardening can mean for children. And children don’t need to be sitting behind a desk or computer screen to learn new skills. It might come as no surprise but gardening helps children feel more capable. But most important is how they can physically interact with it. There is a variety of interesting activities children can be involved in, such as planting, mulching, weeding and cooking. For example, gardening is a great physical development activity. Suddenly, the tree is more than a tree, it's a sapling with smooth bark, or it's a pine tree with rough bark and a sharp pine scent. Here are just a few benefits of gardening with children: Sensory Development. Planting a garden can affect not only your child's body but also their brain and soul. To help develop your child’s emotional skills, teaching them to smile and wave when they are babies is a good place to start. Observation and research has clearly shown that there are outstanding educational benefits for children when involved in gardening activities. For example, young children up to the ages of 3 or so have to learn the very basics of the world they are in —in material form. Gardening with children provides the perfect combination of skills and tasks to address your child’s development. Gardening is an adventure in learning and apparently the more we garden the more we grow. Gardening Helps With Child Development and Cognition. When setting up a painting activity for young children, stop and think about what areas of children’s development it may be helping. Planting a garden can affect not only your child's body but also their brain and soul. Painting with young children not only helps their creative development but it also stimulates their brain. "The strategy of using a garden as a teaching tool benefits both the children and adult, Vanderlick says, explaining that children learn many of the basic life skills to help them prepare for challenges later in life such as responsibility, self-confidence, communication and the skills of observation. For example, gardening is a great physical development activity. asks LSU AgCenter child-care trainer Esther Coco Vanderlick, a Rapides Parish associate agent. In a family, because there are multiple people, the family can be very helpful in developing a child’s skills with the multiple perspectives. Now that I’ve learned this great and valuable lesson I need to apply it to my life. Certain gardening activities at certain ages provide some of the best learning platforms for this development. Maudie Kelly, MS Human Development Specialist KellyME@missouri.edu. Gardening helps make children feel more capable, according to Dr. Wendy Matthews, a consultant of Mindprint Learning.