So I don’t know about where you live, but here in CT, SPRING is finally in the air. The weather is warming up. The neighbors are starting to come out of hibernation; kids playing outside, the jeep wrangler tops are coming off, the green thumbs are tending to their gardens. Speaking of gardens. My kids were BEGGING us for a garden. I hesitated initially, because it was a lot of work, but after long hard consideration and a lot of researching (which included scouring the internet and calling my best friend) I thought this would be a great opportunity for the boys to learn and it actually plays nicely into their executive function development. 

 

Planning

The boys had to plan what they wanted to grow in their garden. They categorized into fruits and vegetables. We talked about what they would eat so we would not waste any food that we grew. We looked at what the plants would need to grow such as the sun, water and soil. Knowing we needed water and sun we watched for a few days the sun in the backyard. Where it covered and for about how long. We did this so we could plan where we were going to place our garden. We also had to take into consideration proximity to the hose. The boys initially said that they could just carry water from the kitchen but once I explained that it could be multiple trips, they thought that being closer to a hose would be “better for the garden” wink::wink::. 

 

Organization

We headed to our local Home Depot to get our seeds! The boys enjoyed getting to pick out their seed packets. They were thoughtful to grab peppers because they knew that mommy liked them for sandwiches. When we got home the boys separated the packets by fruits and vegetables so that way we could organize the garden with fruits together and veggies together. Since they realized there were 3 garden beds the boys gave each other assignments of who would be in charge of spreading the dirt in their garden bed and watering once the seeds were in. 

 

Self Control

This was the hardest part for little kiddos, right? But they did great. They were laser focused on the end game which was to get the garden completed before the end of the day. They took turns at the hose filling up their watering cans and coming to water. They helped each other if a task was a little more difficult. 

Working Memory

The boys were given multi-step directions. Go fill up your watering can and then water the strawberries and then the blueberries. They had to execute those directions in those steps. While this is still developing, we encouraged the boys to ask if they forgot a step so that it could be repeated to them. We also would repeat them as they were doing the steps. “Great, you have the water, next step is the strawberries and then the blueberries”. 

Perseverance

The boys rocked this. It got hard. It got dirty. But they kept going with encouragement. When they said they were getting tired we reminded them that this is what they wanted to do and the repercussions of giving up mid game. They, at times begrudgingly, would get back in it to finish out the task. When it was done they were proud of a job well done. 

While you do not need to do a garden that is the size of ours (or do one at all!) This was a great activity that is going to support the executive function development for the next few seasons. The boys will continue to tend to it – I will keep you posted how that goes!