Planting children - Luna's indoor garden party!

 Last year we had a lot of fun watching the tomatoes we planted with the pre-school children grow. And grow. AND grow! I kept having to move them, until I couldn't move them any lower and they still reached the ceiling! Bit disappointed at how few tomatoes we could enjoy - maybe too much energy spent growing tall?!

We have gone for a bit more variety (and mystery) this year. I have blatantly stolen this idea from Mayuka Habbick, and a presentation she made for Shinshu JALT last year. I pretended to be a silly teacher (?) and that I had lost the packets of the seeds. Children drew a picture of each different kind of seed, then drew a picture of what they thought it would become. Some really cool ideas, which I hope reality will not be a disappointment!

This was a lot of tactile fun, and gave children time to look carefully at the various seeds, taking in the shape, colour, texture, size.

More tactile, and messy, was the planting stage! Inevitably going to get soil etc spread around, so make sure you use a tarp or old newspapers to cover the table/carpet? (We are not blessed with a garden, but we do have a lot of nice warm windows)

We put in some stones at the bottom, them some nice 'snacks' (nutrients) for the plants to send roots down to. A bit of earth, then nestled our seeds around carefully and labelled the pot 1/2/3/4/5 as per our sketches. Then we put them to bed (covered them up with more soil) and finally added the magic ingredient - water. Oh, and a bit of hippy "grow, grow" chanting!

Now the anxious wait for something to happen!