Cardboard Garden

Sweet Phee is really into her primary colors right now. I'll have another post about that soon. On Sunday, after watching a recent favorite episode of Curious George, she asked if she could plant primary color carrots. She asked right at 5:00 as I was getting ready to make dinner, while simultaneously trying to watch my first full game of the hockey season. Ah, kids...

Phee was not happy when I said we didn't have any seeds to plant. I quickly came up with a very cool idea, though, which she has been enjoying all week. We still have some random leftover boxes from Christmas kicking around the garage. I grabbed a small, square box that didn't have a bunch of printing on it. I used construction paper in primary colors and some cereal boxes from the recycling bin to make carrots. (Please excuse the yellow pictures from a darkish room.)

Voila! Phee has her own 3 carrot garden to play with. She can plant the carrots, pick the carrots and make up endless stories and songs about her tiny garden. It's been a hit all week!

This is a great project for planting season. You could make a separate "plot" for different kinds of veggies. Or, use a couple big boxes (paper boxes would be sturdy enough for toddler play) and add different veggies as you plant them, or as they start to grow, or when you start to harvest them. It's a great way for kids to continue to learn about the food that you're growing while they're playing with their friends and stuffed animals.

Materials

• construction paper
• thin cardboard, like cereal boxes
• adhesive
• cardboard box
• scissors

Directions

1. Set up your cardboard box. I taped one end of ours closed, but left the other open so that we could easily retrieve any veggie that got stuffed all the way into the box.
2. Decide how many veggies will fit on one side of your box and then cut slits in the box for the veggies to fit into.
3. Cut out your veggies of choice. You can print out clip art and cut it, or just draw them freehand.
4. Feel free to embellish the veggies with crayons or markers to add some detail.
5. Back the cut out veggies on thin cardboard. I used cereal and cracker boxes that were in the recycling bin.
6. Plant those veggies in the box and have fun pretend gardening! 

{our garden plot box ready with slits}

{our primary color carrots}

{we left one side open so we could retrieve lost veggies}

Do your kids like to help out in the real garden when it's time to plant or harvest? Do they have a favorite garden book?

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