“Nature is the ultimate teacher.” stated Roger Caras in The Complete Amateur Naturalist.  He goes on to say, “In every touch, be it soft or hard our bodies are receivers of information, and nature is always the sender.”  Springtime gives children a wonderful opportunity to explore nature in all of its glory, and is the perfect time on Earth Day, April 22, to plant a garden.  

Infants: Rima Shore stated in Rethinking the Brain: New Insights into Early Development that “Infants need exposure to warm and positive relationships with their world through their senses – touching, smelling, hearing, seeing, and tasting – children experience relationships.  These relationships affect how the infant’s brain is wired thereby shaping subsequent learning and behaviors.”  Use the nursery rhyme “Mary, Mary Quite Contrary” from my book Teaching with Heart to talk about gardens. Make a mobile with pictures of fruits, vegetables, and flowers cut from magazines, and hang it above the changing table.  Talk about the different colors and shapes when changing the infant’s diaper.  As they get older give them real fruits and vegetables to hold and talk about how they feel and smell.  Change the items on the mobile every couple of weeks to add variety and interest.   

Toddlers:  Plant a vegetable garden with seeds and encourage the children to water it using the rhyme “Mary, Mary Quite Contrary.”  Take the seed packets and make a book about the garden.  Cut three pieces of construction paper to fit inside three zip lock bags.  Glue six seed packets and a few of each of the seeds on the front and back and slip them into the bags.  Sew the three bags together and read this book to the children to remind them of what they planted in the garden.  For variety try some flower seeds, Marigolds and Zinnias are easy to plant and always seem to grow well.      

Preschoolers:  Talk to children about what the terms biodegradable means. (It eventually breaks down and goes back to being part of the earth.)  Teach them we are making so much garbage that in many places there is not enough room to bury it all.  Tell them that if we buy things that are biodegradable we will produce a lot less garbage.  To prove the point plant a Garbage Garden to show which things are biodegradable and which things aren’t.  Plant four things: (1) scraps of fruits or vegetables (2) a paper plate or piece of newspaper, (3) a plastic toy (4) a Styrofoam cup, and water them as you would a flower or vegetable garden.  Make sure to mark the spots where you’ve buried your four things so you can find them again.  Wait a month, then go back to dig them up.  You’ll have no trouble finding the plastic toy and Styrofoam cup, but the food scraps and the paper items hopefully will be gone by then or at lease on their way to breaking down to become part of the earth again.  Ask the children which is better for our planet?  Why? 

Mahatma Gandhi said, “To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.”