“What better way to begin to explore the natural world than to experience the magic and beauty of a family garden.” —Arden Bucklin-Sporer, author of How to Grow a School Garden Many gardeners find that once they have children gardening goes the way of late-night dinner parties and Sunday morning sleep-ins. Raising kids and maintaining a garden can be a juggling act, leaving the family garden forgotten and neglected. But kids can make great gardening companions, and the benefits of including them are impossible to ignore. Gardening gets kids outdoors and away from television and video games, increases their connection to plants and animals, and helps build enthusiasm for fresh fruits and vegetables. Their involvement becomes the real harvest of a family garden. In The Book of Gardening Projects for Kids, Whitney Cohen and John Fisher draw on years of experience in the Life Lab Garden Classroom and gardening with their own children to teach parents how to integrate the garden into their family life, no matter its scope or scale. The book features simple, practical gardening advice, including how to design a play-friendly garden, ideas for fun-filled theme gardens, and how to cook and preserve the garden's bounty. 101 engaging, family-friendly garden activities are also featured, from making Crunch-n-Munch Vegetable Beds and Muddy Miniature Masterpieces to harvesting berries for Fresh Fruity Pops.

Features gardening advice, including how to design a play-friendly garden, ideas for fun-filled theme gardens, and how to cook and preserve the garden's bounty.

Grow your own fruits, vegetables, and flowers! Become a gardener in any season with these fun and easy projects. You don't even need a garden space--many of these activities can be done by planting in containers to set on a porch or a patio or even in a window. Try your hand at growing potatoes and strawberries. Plant bright flowers that attract butterflies, birds, and bees. Learn how to get daffodils to bloom in the winter! You can even make your own compost. Colorful photographs and simple step-by-step drawings make each project easy to follow for gardening success. Ready to get your hands dirty and your garden growing?

Tips, tools, advice, and activities for raising eco-friendly kids while nurturing compassion, resilience, and community engagement. Drawing from cutting-edge social-science research, parent interviews, and experiential wisdom, science writer and parenting blogger Shannon Brescher Shea shows how green living and great parenting go hand in hand to teach kids kindness, compassion, resilience, and grit--all while giving them the lifelong tools they need to be successful, engaged, and independent. Growing Sustainable Together is packed with easy tips, expert parenting advice, and practical hands-on activities for the toddler years up through the early teens. The enriching activities, resource guides, and recommended book lists in each chapter distill core sustainablility knowledge, like: Understanding energy efficiency and renewables Instilling anti-waste and anti-consumerist values Learning where our food comes from Developing a lifelong love for environmental activism, volunteering, and community engagement The book concludes with a practical appendix that gives talking points for engaging teachers, school systems, and fellow parents in eco-friendly activities.

Sharpen STEAM skills—and have a blast—with educational gardening projects for kids 8 to 12 Discover how fun and educational growing plants can be. Gardening for Kids is packed with essential information for beginner gardeners and tons of awesome projects that help kids grow their science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) skills. Go outside with easy-to-try experiments that will teach you all about the environment, plants, and what it takes to grow and maintain your very own garden. Find out what your soil is made of, make a miniature greenhouse, race seeds, and so much more! Gardening for Kids provides: Gardening 101—Learn everything you need to get your garden started today, from basic safety tips to helpful advice on caring for your plants. 25 Gardening projects—Dig into the natural world with a ton of fun experiments like sprouting food scraps, building plant forts, and more—each one focusing on specific STEAM skills. A chance to grow together—This book features handy tips for expanding projects to work with groups of kids so you can share the fun in classrooms and community gardens. Grow a love of science, technology, engineering, art, and math—plus lots of plants—with Gardening for Kids.

From the author of the New York Times bestseller that defined nature-deficit disorder and launched the international children-and-nature movement, Vitamin N (for “nature”) is a complete prescription for connecting with the power and joy of the natural world right now, with 500 activities for children and adults Dozens of inspiring and thought-provoking essays Scores of informational websites Down-to-earth advice In his landmark work Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv was the first to bring widespread attention to the alienation of children from the natural world, coining the term nature-deficit disorder and outlining the benefits of a strong nature connection--from boosting mental acuity and creativity to reducing obesity and depression, from promoting health and wellness to simply having fun. That book “rivaled Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring” (the Cincinnati Enquirer), was “an absolute must-read for parents” (the Boston Globe), and “an inch-thick caution against raising the fully automated child” (the New York Times). His follow-up book, The Nature Principle, addressed the needs of adults and outlined a “new nature movement and its potential to improve the lives of all people no matter where they live” (McClatchy Newspapers).Vitamin N is a one-of-a-kind, comprehensive, and practical guidebook for the whole family and the wider community, including tips not only for parents eager to share nature with their kids but also for those seeking nature-smart schools, medical professionals, and even careers. It is a dose of pure inspiration, reminding us that looking up at the stars or taking a walk in the woods is as exhilarating as it is essential, at any age.