Materials: paints or markers, craft sticks or popsicle sticks (newspaper or plastic to cover table, old clothes or art smock to protect clothes if you are using paint).

Step 1: Write a list of which plants/ flowers/ vegetables you are going to plant in your garden.

Step 2: Let your child decorate the craft sticks/popsicle sticks to illustrate what plants you have.

Step 3: Let the sticks dry and then use them in your garden by sticking them in the soil beside the seedling that matches or where the matching seeds have been planted.

VARIATION: Use rocks to paint the labels onto.

EASY DECORATIONS FOR INDOOR LEARNING:

Perhaps you don't have a lot of space or even a backyard but your child would like to learn more about plants and gardens.  You don't need a lot to plant a seed.  Look around at home to see what you can use to add rocks at the bottom and then dirt.  If you happen to forget your re-usable cup when you go out next take the cup home and use it again.

Materials: re-use a plastic of paper cup, stickers.

Step 1: Let your child decorate the plastic or paper cup with stickers.It's as easy at that!

Step 3: Use it in the “Learning Activities” section to plant some seeds near your window.

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Preschool

Craft Ideas:

Materials: paints in many different colours, paint brushes, white paper or dollarstore canvas, jar or can or yogurt container of water and paper towels, newspapers or plastic to cover your work area, old clothes or art smock to protect clothes.

Step 1: Let your budding artist create his/her own garden scene with the paints.

Step 2: Allow the picture to dry and then display or glue it into your Family Theme Day Scrapbook.

Garden

Crafts for the Garden:

Materials: Various stickers of plants, flowers, vegetables and bugs, coloured paper, (optional) markers and/or crayons .

Step 1: Let your child pick the colour of paper he/she wants to use for this craft and him/her various stickers to make either a collage or a scene.
Step 2: If your child so desires have him/her add details or embellishments to the scene.

Tell your child about what it means to have a green thumb and then make this simple craft.

Materials: green paint, paper, waxed paper, newspaper or plastic to cover table, old clothes or art smock to protect clothes

 Step 1: Pour some paint onto a piece of waxed paper or on a reusable plastic plate (you can peel off the acrylic paint afterwards and reuse the plate!).

Step 2: Show your child how to pres his/her thumb into the green paint and then press it on to a scrap sheet of paper to get rid of excess paint and then press it onto a piece of paper  to create a green thumb picture.

Step 3: Repeat and press thumb prints all over the page.

Step 4: Let the picture dry and then display or glue into your Family  Theme Day Scrapbook.

Materials: Clay pots from craft store OR gardening store or use containers you have at home already from a garden center OR use washed tin cans (the ones from canned tomatoes work well); acryllic paints, paint brushes, newspaper or plastic to cover table, old clothes or art smock to protect clothes

Step 1: Let your child choose the colours of paint he/she wishes to use.

Step 2: Let your child paint on the outside of the clay pot. They can paint it one colour or many. They can add designs or pther pictures or not!

Step 3: Let the pot dry before using it in the “Learning Activities.”

Materials: old magazines, colored paper, glue stick, child safe scissors, damp cloth for sticky fingers.

Step 1: Search through old magazines for different colours to be used as vegetables.  For instance you can use the green from a photo of a tree to be the green part of a carrot.  Rip out various colours (we used green, red, yellow, purple, blue and orange).

Step 2: Use these colours to create simple pictures of vegetables by cutting out shapes and gluing them to a sheet of paper.  For a cherry tomatoes we cut out small circles out of red (from a picture of a couch) and then cut out some green (from the background of an ad) into star shapes for the stem.  If you have younger children you can do the cutting for them but have your children help you decide on the vegetables, shapes and colours to use and let them do the gluing.

Step 3: Display or glue in your Family Theme Day Scrapbook.

CRAFTS

Other Garden Inspired Crafts:

My Son's Garden painting, aged 7

Materials: old magazines, colored paper, glue stick, child safe scissors, damp cloth for sticky fingers.

Step 1: Search through old magazines for photographs of plants, vegetables and flowers. Rip out the page and then help your little one cut out the pictures (or do this in advance if your child isn't using scissors yet).

Step 2:  Have your child chose a coloured background and then show him/her how to glue the picture to the page. let the gluging commence (keep a damp cloth for sticky fingers on hand).

Step 3: Display or glue in your Family Theme Day Scrapbook.

Materials: rocks (my sons were forever collecting rocks when we went for walks so I had a lot of them to use for crafts, but we also put rocks in our landcaping when we finally moved to a house so we could use those as welll; however, you can also buy rocks at the dollarstore); acryllic paints; (Optional) glaze to coat finished product; paint brushes, newspaper or plastic to cover table, old clothes or art smock to protect clothes.

Step 1: I find that most rock painting benifits with a white base coat (unless you are making lady bugs and using black rocks already).  Paint your rocks ahead of time if you don't think your kids will have the patience to wait.  Otherwise, paint one side; let it dry on waxed paper and then paint the other side.

Step 2: Now your children can decorate the rocks! Check below for some suggestions.

Step 3: Let the rocks dry and if you want them to last for years paint a glaze (from a craft store) overtop and let that dry as well.  The glaze keeps the colours from fading, protecting them from the elements if you leave them outside.