School Holiday Garden Games

This month Edendale School students share their three favourite garden games. A fun way to extend garden learning, try these in your own garden these school holidays!

This month we would like to share Edendale students three favourite garden games. Sometimes we get all of our garden tasks finished before the kitchen is ready for us. A game can be a quick, fun way to extend garden learning!

Map Reading

A map has been created of our main vegetable gardens. It contains the names and pictures of the plants we are growing. Our annual gardens are indicated with letters of the alphabet which match the letters on our raised garden beds.

After a quick explanation on how the map works, the children have great fun finding different plants on their map and then discovering it growing in the garden. I lead the students to herbs they can touch and smell, fruit that can be picked and eaten, and vegetables that will be or have been harvested that day for the kitchen.

A map is also a great way to allocate daily tasks:

• We need to harvest four radish for the kitchen. Can you find and harvest them?
• The broccoli needs to be planted in garden B. Collect compost, sheep pellets and 8 broccoli seedlings then take them to garden B.
• Can you find and liquid feed the tomato plants?

Other uses for the map might include, help with planning crop rotation, a template for creating a dream vegetable garden, a visual record of what’s in season.

Garden Bingo

Our oldest game has been going strong for five years now. It is the traditional game of bingo using pictures of things you might find in the garden. Great for all ages, abilities and levels of knowledge. It is also a great wet day activity if you have an undercover area to work in.

The game was created after some online research. It took awhile to set up, you could get the kids to help. It has been well worth the effort.

A take on Chicken, Chips and Pizza!

We change the words to suit e.g. Compost, Weeds, Worms.

Using the basketball court we name three of the marked lines, line 1 is compost, line 2 is weeds and line 3 is worms.

Everyone lines up on the worm line and the garden specialist call weeds! Everyone runs to the line we have called weeds. The last student to reach the line is out and they get to make the next call.

Keep going until there is only one child left. We usually have have a few practices before the real game starts.

This is a great way to reinforce some garden language that may be new to some.

Tui & Garden to Table

We are excited to be supporting Garden To Table as our school programme again this year. Garden to Table is a trust, which runs a gardening and cooking programme in schools across New Zealand. As participants in the Garden to Table programme, seven to 10 year-old children spend time in a productive vege garden and home-style kitchen each week. There they learn skills that will last them a lifetime, and discover just how much fun it is to grow and cook their own seasonal vegetables and fruits.

Tui is providing starter packs to each of the new schools, and seasonal packs during the year.

Read more Garden to Table updates here >