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- Children show an interest in activities through observation or participation. They continue to be interested, motivated and excited to learn. They sustain involvement and persevere. Gardening can be excellently applied to these three goals being an on-going, gradual task.
- Children dress, undress and manage personal hygiene with or independently of adult support. Children should be encouraged to wear and understand why they should wear suitable clothing for gardening activities e.g. gardening gloves, apron, sunhat in summer, coat in winter and to wash their hands afterwards.
- Children select and use activities and resources independently. Are children able to choose the right gardening tools and accessories to complete their tasks?
- Children play alongside others. Build relationships through gesture and talk. Work as part of a group or class, taking turns and sharing fairly. Form good relationships with adults and peers. Understand that there need to be agreed values and codes of behaviour for groups of people, including adults and children, to work together harmoniously. Gardening as a classroom or group activity is an excellent facilitator of these valuable social development goals.
- Consider the consequences of words and actions for self and others. Understand what is right, what is wrong, and why. Elements of these emotional development goals can be assessed and discussed with children in sharing activities.
Communication, language and literacy
- Children listen and respond. They talk activities through, reflecting on and modifying actions. Interact with others in a variety of contexts, negotiating plans and activities and taking turns in conversation. Use talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events, exploring the meanings and sounds of new words. Speak clearly with confidence and control, showing awareness of the listener. Planning a new garden offers plenty of scope for exploring these communication goals - children will have to listen to instructions, talk through plans and different options and to allocate tasks. Each child should be encouraged to take turns in discussions and to be respectful when others are talking.
- Children understand that print conveys meaning. Recognise a few familiar words. Know that, in English, print is read from left to right and top to bottom. Show an understanding of how information can be found in non-fiction texts to answer questions about where, who, why and how. Instruction leaflets, seed packets, simple gardening books etc. used for helping children with their garden are excellent sources of information that can be used to illustrate these reading goals.
Mathematical Development
- Over time children are able to reliably count up to 20 and make simple calculations. Seeds/seedlings are common objects that will need to be counted as part part of gardening activities.
- Children can sort or match objects. Children can sort their plants by size or in groups of plant type/colour.
- Children talk about, recognise and recreate simple patterns. They use everyday words to describe position. Goals that can be assessed through planning a new garden.
Knowledge and understanding of the world
- This area of the National Curriculum is particularly applicable to children's gardening. Key areas for assessment include: Children show curiosity and interest by exploring surroundings. Observe, select and manipulate objects and materials. Identify obvious similarities and differences when exploring and observing. Investigate living things by using all the senses as appropriate and can identify some features, talking about those features they like and dislike. Ask questions about why things happen and how things work.
Physical Development
- Children progressively move with confidence showing control and coordination. Show awareness of self, others and move around with safety. They begin to develop fine motor control and coordination and can use small and large equipment, showing a range of basic skills. Children handle tools safely and with basic control. Using gardening equipment offers excellent opportunities to practice and hone these physical development skills.
- Children recognise the importance of keeping healthy and those things which contribute to this. Initiate talks on healthy eating and plant vegetables, it is a great way of encouraging children to think about their diets and try things they might otherwise avoid.
Creative Development
- Children's creative development can be expressed through collages that represent their gardens. Children should be encouraged to think about what materials are best to use e.g. something rigid and thin like a pipe cleaner for plant stems, gritty collage sand for soil and soft cotton wool for dandelion heads.
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