Building a Sensory Garden

Last year, when we went on vacation, we went to the MN Children's Museum.  I would totally recommend it as one of the most awesome places to take your children.  Or borrow someone else's children and take them.  It is so cool and so much fun to watch kiddos explore and learn in all the exhibits that they have set up there...  And it is a lot of fun to check out as an adult too, I won't lie.  I think I have almost as much fun as my munchkins do.  :)

One of the things that I really noticed the last time we were there was that they had planted a sensory garden in their rooftop exhibit.  I loved that it combined gardening, the outdoors, and a total sensory experience for children.  As they had planted herbs, the plants had strong, individual odors, different shapes and colors, different textures, and were safe to allow children to taste.

Little Man exploring the sensory garden at MN Children's Museum

So, this summer I stole borrowed the idea of a "Summer Bucket List" from a fellow mom/child care teacher/ blogger, and we came up with a great list of fun things to do this summer.  Since I love the idea of a sensory garden, we added that. 

To set it up, I picked up a huge clay pot from Menards about a week ago.  I also picked up a couple smaller ones for something else, and used one of those to make a small sensory garden for my nephew to take home.  It was great fun that he got to join us!

The kids and I took turns digging up some black dirt from a small hill that I have in my back yard and filled those pots up.  I should mention that I set the pots in the kids' Radio Flyer wagon, as I didn't want to be hauling full pots of dirt across the yard.  Did I mention that one of them was huge?  Even with some plastic bottles filling up about half the space in the bottom of the large pot (for extra drainage, and to lessen the weight in the pot in the event that I do have to move it more than a few inches), it was still pretty heavy.

On Saturday morning, my munchkin crew and I hit up the farmer's market for several varieties of herbs- basil, lemon mint, rosemary, and opal basil in two varieties.  Kinda basil heavy, but they all look and smell different, which was the point.  :)  And really, you can put what ever plants you want in these...  Though I would recommend plants that are child safe, as one sense that children love to explore is taste.  :)  After we had the pots filled, we took turns making holes in the dirt, and setting our 'baby plants' into their new homes.  The kiddos all had fun patting the dirt around the root balls.

After we had our plants in, we talked about how to touch the plants gently, how we could smell them and notice the differences, and that we could pick off little pieces of leaves to taste.  

None of the kids were overly impressed with the tastes of any of the plants available, but they sure had a lot of fun making these!

I love gardens for children, and am looking forward to seeing these give my loves some interest and learning through the summer.