We’re weeks away from Earth Day 2021 and it’s a great opportunity to get outside and show your kids how to give our planet some extra attention!
For the past several years, our family “celebrated” Earth Day by throwing on some gloves and picking up trash we found in our local park and in the nature conservancy near our house. It’s amazing (and sad) how much garbage accumulates over the winter months in our area, but it’s really satisfying to help pick up and show the kids how they can make a difference.
This year, we’re taking our Earth Day plans in a new direction and helping the kids learn to garden! We built a small raised garden bed on the side of our house and let the kids choose seeds they’d like to try to grow. The dollar store has a great selection of seeds and you can get 4 packs for $1! They also sell potting soil and other gardening tools. They had SO much fun picking out seeds and deciding what they’d like to put in their garden this season. 
We purposely helped them choose plants we knew grew fairly easily and could be started indoors – tomatoes, basil, chives and a few flowers.
The kids helped scoop soil into seed starting pots and we showed them how each type of plant needs a different depth to grow in the soil. They pushed seeds into the surface, or dug ¼ inch holes, and covered up their future plant babies! We gave them each a squirt bottle and they helped water their plants each morning and afternoon.
In just a few days time, the first little sprouts made their appearance, and that small bit of reinforcement made the kids so excited! They loved watching the sprouts grow bigger and bigger.
Now that the weather is starting to warm up a bit, we’ll take them outside to “work” their garden box. They’ll help us turn over the soil, clear up debris and get ready to transplant their seedlings to their new home.
If you’re interested in showing your kids how to grow a seed into a plant, here are a few great resources for getting started:
Happy Earth Day!