Anyone else love reading books that are on one topic? Kind of like a unit study, but without the extra pages and work? We do, especially during the summer! We’re blessed to have a plot of land to garden, plus plenty of u-pick farms for fruit & flowers, so the boys get plenty of hands-on experience with gardening. But, during our daily reading time, these are our favorite books to incorporate to learn about gardening.
I would say these books are geared toward the 3-8 year old group, but plenty of them give extra information that they could definitely work for older elementary age children (and my boys have loved them at 1 and 2 years old!). Here we go on our family’s top 10 gardening books for children!
Jack’s Garden by Henry Cole is a beautifully done, catchy book on how to grow a garden. There are beautiful illustrations of different plants, insects and birds.
Zinnia’s Flower Garden by Monica Wellington is a fun little book on growing flowers. I especially like her drawings on the side to give examples on how to make nature notes about their garden/nature finds.
Flower Garden by Eve Bunting is a yearly favorite! Beautiful pictures and story for those who don’t have land for a huge flower garden.
From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons. Gail Gibbons is one of our favorite authors hands down. So educational about all things gardening, plus a story line that keeps the kids attention.
Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner is another one of the boys’ favorite! Such a fun story with just enough information to give them something to learn. This book helps children learn to look up & down when exploring the garden.
A Seed is Sleepy by Dianna Hutts Aston is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL book!. You can just read bit & pieces with this book, or dive deeper about the different seeds.
Secrets of the Vegetable Garden by Carron Brown is a fun & interactive books that the kids love! It focuses on vegetable gardening and the animals you may find.
Planting the Wild Garden by Katheryn Galbraith is such a lovely book with wonderful descriptive words about wild grasses, herbs, flowers and fruit and how they grow.
We are the Gardeners by Joanna Gaines is one of the boys’ favorite books that we read year round! The boys often say “we are the gardeners!” when faced with problems in the garden like lots of weeds or bugs. Such a fun and beautiful book children & mamas alike will love to read!
Grandpa’s Garden by Stella Fry is such a sweet story about the year round work that a garden takes. The generational aspect of gardening with a grandparent is just precious!
Do you have a garden? Have you read any of these books to your kids? If you grew up gardening with family, what’s your favorite memory of it?
Sincerely,
Hannah Diane,
wildandfreehomestead.com 