How to Create Your Own Homeschool Garden

If you are a homeschooler, consider bringing your classroom outdoors to the garden. I consider this to be my Charlotte Mason niche. I love to garden, and it is the perfect opportunity to use Charlotte Mason's techniques in our homeschool. Books on gardening line our shelves and garden tools line our garage. Boys love digging and exploring, and with the tools and books in hand, the great outdoors becomes one giant classroom.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. 
   Purple Cone Flower in our yard.

   Create a butterfly habitat.
   
   Butterfly bushes (Buddleia) we have planted over the years have become our butterfly habitat and provided us with many species of butterflies to delight our hearts and minds. We have spent hours watching the butterflies bustle around the bushes, compared the various types that have landed, and watched these beautiful creatures extend their proboscises as they feed. We also have other flowers in our garden that attract butterflies such as purple cone flower (echinacea purpurea)and daisies. A great unit study on butterflies might include spendng time in the garden watching the butterflies, taking or drawing their pictures and creating a butterfly album.

2. 
   Strawberry plant with a bloom and a new strawberry forming.

   Plant berries.
   
   Berries make a wonderful addition to any garden. Blackberries, blueberries, raspberries and strawberries come back year after year, each crop bringing a more plentiful bounty! Learn how berries grow and then bring the classroom back inside as you teach the children how to make jams, jellies and other delicious goodies from your homegrown fruit.

3. 
   Chives growing among the mint in our garden.

   Plant an herb garden.
   
   To delight the senses, we sometimes walk through the garden tasting and smelling all of the delicious edible herbs and flowers. If you have not tried this, set aside some time to discover your garden in a new fashion! My boys enjoy rubbing their fingers on the herbs and then smelling the delightful aroma. Mint, rosemary, lavender, oregano, sage, basil, and other herbs are delightful to smell, and taste! We also use the various herbs in cooking. We've made mint jelly and use mint in tea and a variety of recipes once it starts popping up in the spring.

4. 
   Henry's lettuce growing in our 2009 garden.

   Plant a garden with a theme.
   
   Along with the perennials we have already added to our garden, each year we add a variety of annual flowers, herbs and vegetables. Sometimes, we plan a themed garden, while other years we just plant whatever suits us while we are shopping for seeds and plants. Last year's theme was a bunny garden which contained specially selected items for our pet rabbit, Henry. We selected special plants suited for bunny consumption: spinach, basil, rosemary, two varieties of lettuce, carrots, and tomatoes. The boys had fun watching the garden grow and feeding our special produce to our pet rabbit.

5. 
   Pumpkins growing in a container in our 2009 garden.

   Grow pumpkins for pumpkin pie and Halloween.
   
   Pumpkins make a great addition to your table! You can make pumpkin muffins, bread, pies and use larger varities for Hallowen decorating. This year, we are growing a small pumpkin variety in a container garden.

6. 
   A peony from our garden.

   Plant colorful flowers from seed.
   
   There are many varieties of flowers that are easy to grow from seed. Zinnias and Sweet Alyssum are always easy to grow from seeds and are a delight to children of all ages. Who does not love the bright colored, ever-blooming, carnation-like flower Zinnias produce?

7. 
   A rose in my rose garden.

   On a nice spring day, sit outside with your drawing tablets and draw the nature you see before you. My boys have enjoyed doing this over the years. You can draw the flowers and label the parts, draw the different herbs in your garden and label them. You can collect specimens to place in a nature scrapbook, as well. Use the books from your shelves to note facts about each in your nature journal. We have even done science experiments with photo paper and various flowers and leaves. By placing the flowers and leaves on the photo paper and exposing them to sunlight for varying lengths of time, you can create masterpieces as you learn.

8. Create paints from nature or make a nature collage.
   
   There is no end to what you can do in the classroom of the great outdoors. Everything from creating your own colorful paints and dyes to making art collages. Crush the plant material to make natural paints and dyes or use the plant materials to make a beautiful collage.

9. Make Paper.
   
   One of our favorite activities is paper making. There are a variety of ways in which you can use your selected plants in paper making. You can make paper from the actual plants themselves, which takes longer and is more time consuming or you can use the dried plant material in recycled paper you create. We prefer the latter in our home school. Using a plant press, you can dry plants and flowers and then add them to your recycled paper pulp ( recycled paper made using a kitchen blender and water).

10. No matter what activities you choose, the home school garden is sure to be an enjoyable classroom for all. Grab your books, garden tools, nature books and a fresh pitcher of lemonade and head outside to explore God's creation. It will refresh your soul and breathe new life into your home school

Resources

• Curran Family Website

[honeyd81]

on 6/21/2009 Great ideas! Too bad most of my plants die :(