I’m sharing some fun science garden ideas and a fun pizza container garden. You’ll love more ideas on my page Easy Seeds and Gardening Unit Study for Kids (Middle – Upper Elementary)
Turn a simple interest in gardening into a fun lesson with a great hands-on activity by picking up a couple of fresh herb plants, some soil, and whatever planter you have on hand.
This is a fun garden idea for preschoolers through high schoolers to get involved in, making it the perfect activity for the whole family.
I have more science garden ideas for homeschooling that you can choose from.
Most families love pizza, so making a from-scratch pizza together, and adding fresh herbs that you grew with your hands makes it that much better.
Besides putting together a fabulous small herb garden you can also let the kids get creative juices flowing by creating their own plant labels to add to the garden as well.
Use this simply as a fun family activity or turn it into a unit study with books, additional gardening activities, cooking, and more.
In Farm Anatomy I found a treasure trove of information like how to grow tomatoes in various ways, tomato varieties, and even how to can tomatoes.
There are plenty of tips like bugs that are good vs. bad bugs for your garden.
And great herb illustrations as well as recipes.
More Science Garden Ideas
Next, look at more ideas to bring gardening, cooking, and science together.
- How to Make Easy Herb and Olive Oil Garden Bread With Kids
- How to Plan And Start an Easy Gardening Unit Study for Kids
- George Washington Carver Fun Peanut Quick Unit Study & Notebooking Pages
- Gardening Projects For Homeschool Easy Composting With the Amazing Dr. George Carver (Free Printable About Compost)
- LEGO is good for everything. Check out How to Easily Garden Plan With Kids Using LEGO.
- This simple activity is great for younger learners- Growing a Seed Activity For Kindergarten Science Kids Activity.
- Kinder Gardening to Celebrate Nature and Science
- Keep birds out of your garden with Painted Garden Rocks.
- Cherokee Garden Pan Bread
- This dinosaur garden is a fun activity reminiscent of fairy gardens, perfect for little hands.
Additionally, here are some fun books about gardening and ideas.
11 Gardening With Kids Books & Fun Resources
As a true bibliophile no unit study would be complete without a strong list of books to support a topic. Here is a great list for everyone in the family.
Learn the difference between a farrow and a barrow, and what distinguishes a weanling from a yearling. Country and city mice alike will delight in Julia Rothman’s charming illustrated guide to the curious parts and pieces of rural living. Dissecting everything from the shapes of squash varieties to how a barn is constructed and what makes up a beehive to crop rotation patterns, Rothman gives a richly entertaining tour of the quirky details of country life.
Packed with garden-based activities that promote science, math, reading, writing, imaginative play, and arts and crafts, The Garden Classroom offers a whole year of outdoor play and learning ideas—however big or small your garden.
Explore the secret realm beneath the dirt that brings the world of nature to life: Follow a young girl and her grandmother on a journey through the year planning, planting, and harvesting their garden—and learn about what's happening in the dirt to help make it all happen.Up in the garden, the world is full of green—leaves and sprouts, growing vegetables, ripening fruit. But down in the dirt exists a busy world—earthworms dig, snakes hunt, skunks burrow—populated by all the creatures that make a garden their home
A refreshing source of ideas to help your children learn to grow their own patch of earth, Gardening Lab for Kids encourages children to get outside and enjoy nature. This fun and creative book features 52 plant-related activities set into weekly lessons, beginning with learning to read maps to find your heat zone, moving through seeds, soil, composting, and then creating garden art and appreciating your natural surroundings.
Whether inside or outside, decorative or edible, this book is full of gardening projects large and small. Easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions are accompanied by photographs that guide the aspiring gardening through planting all kinds of gardens.
MONTESSORI FOR TODDLERS: Our gardening tool set encourages kids to play outside & learn about plants, nature & sustainability. Perfect for the yard and sand box.
OUTDOOR LEARNING ACTIVITIES: Our Kids Garden Set is great for Occupational Therapy & Developing Fine Motor Skills. Suitable for Boys and girls.
A Gardening Research Workbook & Planning Guide for Teens, Kids and Families! Perfect for Homeschooling Science, Nature Study, Botany and Home Economics!
Designed for teens, but perfect for Ages 9+ (Younger students will need some extra help).
{Raised Garden Bed for Kids} We designed the children raised garden bed carefully, so that your children can feel the happiness of plant growth and the magic of natural life. Our raised garden bed deep enough to provide your plants and vegetables with ample room to breathe and grow healthy.
Flowers, trees, fruits—plants are all around us, but where do they come from? With simple language and bright illustrations, non-fiction master Gail Gibbons introduces young readers to the processes of pollination, seed formation, and germination. Important vocabulary is reinforced with accessible explanation and colorful, clear diagrams showing the parts of plants, the wide variety of seeds, and how they grow. The book includes instructions for a seed-growing project, and a page of interesting facts about plants, seeds, and flowers. A nonfiction classic, and a perfect companion for early science lessons and curious young gardeners.
Kids see plants, flowers, and trees around them every day. In this lively and educational reader, they'll learn how those plants grow. Kids will take this magical journey from seed pollination to plant growth, learning about what plants need to thrive and grow with the same careful text, brilliant photographs, and the fun approach National Geographic Readers are known for.
An easy and fun introduction to plant biology! With the able assistance of Thing 1 and Thing 2 - the Cat in the Hat explores the world of plants. Kids will learn about the various parts of plants, seeds, and flowers; basic photosynthesis and pollination; and seed dispersal.
Next, look at this fun gardening idea of doing a pizza container garden.
Now, you can absolutely start your herb and vegetable garden from seeds but for new gardeners, I highly suggest that you start with plants.
How to Make Pizza Herb Garden
This helps keep the kids excited about the project as it speeds up the time from planting to harvest quite a bit.
You will need the following:
- Basil Plant
- Oregano Plant
- Pepper Plant
- Tomato Plant
- Potting Soil
- Large or multiple containers for planting
- Wood craft sticks
- Sharpie markers
Directions:
Start with a good-sized container with drainage holes.
Fill the container ¾ of the way with potting soil.
Press the tomato cage down into the soil so that it is secure.
Since I used a container that wouldn’t allow enough of the supports to go in, I bent the ends up about 5” and pressed it in the soil nearly to the bottom.
Carefully remove each plant from the pot and spread it out around your container.
You don’t want to overcrowd your pot. They may be small now, but plants will grow quickly with proper care.
For the tomato plant, you want to put it inside the cage, laying on its side up to the first set of leaves.
Add your other herbs, spacing them as far apart as you can.
Looking good already, right?
Water until the soil is soaked.
Paint each craft stick a fun color to help them last a little longer outdoors, allowing them to dry completely.
Write out the names of your plants onto the craft stick with permanent markers or paint pens, let them get creative, and draw pictures or simple doodles on them if they want.
Add your labels to the plants in the pots to keep track.
For the first week or two you will want to make sure that your water well every day.
After that several times a week, keep an eye out for weeds.
Even in a container, weeds will make their way through draining holes or some spread seeds by floating.
