Container Gardening in the Classroom

   As I try to put myself in the shoes of a classroom teacher reading this blog, I keep coming back to this concern: Gardening sounds great, but I have no place for my students to grow plants! A likely and very realistic draw back for many teachers, I have been brainstorming ways to overcome this obstacle.

  While collecting books for my annotated bibliography, I came across an excellent little books called Kids' Container Gardening.

 

 

  This book is filled with tons of gardening projects for both inside and outside. The book starts out by giving some excellent tips about caring for and growing plants. An excellent point that this book makes is that plants depend on us to care for them. This is an excellent life lesson to teach in the classroom. Plants in a garden, much like people and animals, will not flourish without proper nutrients, love and attention.

  I will also take this opportunity to relate plants to a child's educational journey. While teachers are obviously responsible for caring and nurturing students, students must also take an active role in this process. A students academic growth depends on their attitude, work ethic and the attention they give to it. If a student gives it their best or doesn't try hard enough, it will be apparent -just like if you give a plant the right amount of water and attention or if you forget to water it for a little while. Another great lesson students can learn from plants is perseverance. Often plants get infected by insects or disease, they begin to rot from too much water or shrivel up because they have no been watered enough but, with corrective care and love these plants get back on the right track and grow even stronger than before. I have seen my mother bring many plants "back to life" as we like to call it. This is an important lesson for students to see in action!

 Back to the book...there are some really cool gardening ideas that you should definitely check out! Sand Art Terrariums, Venus Flytrap Terrariums and Vegetable Hanging Gardens are all great projects you can find inside this book. Imaging a classroom with hanging vegetable gardens..how awesome would that be!?!?