Engaging Children in STEAM - Building a vege patch!

The Build

My daughter helping with landscaping of the backyard

Getting my daughter involved in the building process of the vege patch was a great way to expose her to real life engineering, problem solving and building processes. 

Although she was only 1 at the time and couldn't comprehend the theory behind what we were doing, it has been suggested that exposing children to these type of projects can help them to engage with STEAM subjects and gain interest in these subjects as they get older.

Planting

My daughter helping plant lettuces and carrots

When it was time to plant all the seedlings, our daughter was happy to get involved in that too! At just one-year-old she was digging little holes to help her dad plant the carrots and lettuces - She also pulled a few out!

Getting her involved in the planting stage has given her the opportunity to see her little plants grow with her. Over a year later and she has seen her tomatoes, snow peas and capsicums grow several generations as we plant the seeds from the vege scraps when we cook.

Time to reap what you sow

My daughter picking purple snow peas

Every other day we go out in the evening after work and look at the veges to see what has grown and pick anything that is ready.

Growing your own food teaches children about sustainability and healthy eating habits. There is nothing more satisfying than watching your child pick a big juicy red tomato straight of the vine and chomp into it like an apple.

Try it yourself

Our vege patch is pretty big and there is no need to go to this extreme to get your kids involved with growing their own food. You could do a similar thing with pots or even mason bars for herbs on the kitchen window!

So why not start growing your own veges and get your kids involved in the process; planting, watering, feeding, harvesting and planting again.

Added Bonus!

My daughter investigating different types of leaves from the vege patch

As an extra activity with the vege patch we have also investigated the different types of leaves that grow. We talked about why some leaves smell different to others like mint, bazil and oregano and why some leaves are edible and others aren't.

We also did some leaf rubbings. Leaf rubbings are a great way to connect with nature and teach kids about the different parts of leaves (blade, veins, penile, stem, etc) and gives them great foundations to be able to understand more complex environmental science concepts like photosynthesis later in life.

My daughter doing leaf rubbings