Start them young. (Our Littlest Gardeners)
“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.” – Gertrude Jekyll
With all that’s going on in the world and our busy lives especially in this season, we find solace in knowing that we always have the garden- a place to take it back to the basics and find a haven. These are lessons that we aim to teach our own kids at a young age, and are so honored to extend these learnings to our community’s youngest members.
This October will be ALL about our youngest students, our Littlest Gardeners (ages 3-5), as we will be working with so many of them both in the garden and outside our space as well. We really love experiencing the wonder and joy through their eyes and are so excited to be able to get them involved in gardening at such a young age. When we first started The Nurtured Seedling back in 2021, we truly didn’t know what it was going to turn into, only that we wanted to bring share our love of nature, plants, and food to our community, and we are so overjoyed that this offering is starting to grow beyond the sweet garden.
We thought we would share some of the things will be up to next month so you can join in on the fun! If you’re interested in bringing these offering to your community, or joining us here in the garden, read on to learn more.
{scarecrows made by kiddos in our gardening series}
Of course, we will be having our Littlest Gardeners quarterly class on October 19- our last session of the year. Wait til you see all the spooky cuteness we’re incorporating into this fun session. (Check out last year’s class here.) Rain or shine, this is one of our favorite offerings- especially when kiddos come with grandparents, it’s the sweetest.
We are also going to be hosting a sweet four-year-old birthday party, with a slightly modified take on our Enchanted Garden theme. While the older kiddos get to make their own enchanted/fairy gardens as part of our birthday party offering, the little ones will be making these adorable, wearable (!!) butterfly wings using elements from the garden, and then prance around in them before their garden tea party. We’ll be opening up more availability for these parties in early Spring, and if your kiddo might love this but just isn’t into the fairy thing, we can customize the theme to be less about fairies and butterflies and more “enchanted forest”, which is just as magical for any personality.
Another BIG thing that we are stoked to be starting is something that will especially appeal to our friends on the other side of the Caldicott tunnel. We are partnering with Little Seeds Family, a wonderful family and learning resource center in the heart of Lafayette, where we will be teaching a four-week gardening series for preschool and TK-aged kiddos.
{Flavia reading about worms at a local pre-school}
We really love taking the show on the road to expose even more kiddos to the joys of gardening, and since having revamped our preschool gardening program, have already been talking to a couple pre-schools in the area about doing a series for them on their campus in the Spring.
To be first to learn about these offerings as they become available, and to get seasonal gardening tips, our favorite recipes, and garden-inspired activities you can do with the kiddos, be sure to join our newsletter HERE.
In the meantime, learn more below and join us for some messy fun!
xx, Darina and Flavia
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Littlest Gardeners Fall Class:
Little Seeds Family Gardening Series:
Location: Lafayette
Thursdays 4:30pm-5:15pm
October 17th, 24th, (no class on Halloween), November 7th & 14th
Pre-School Offering:
Here is a sample four-week series that we will be doing with a pre-school in the Spring, but we’ve also done single classes. Generally, these pre-school requests come to us from an interested parent and often someone on the school’s parent board. If that’s you or if you would like more information, fill out the interest form below let’s talk. Another option if your school is not able to offer one of these options, you can always get a group of buddies together for a private class here in the garden.
Pre-school class interest form here.
Birthday Parties in the Garden: