This gardening toddler tray has many activities for your child to learn and play! This is also a great way to bring the fun of spring a things are warming up a bit outside.
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Gardening Tools in Dirt
This toddler tray has some gardening tools you can get from Amazon. There is also some “dirt” (I didn’t want to use actual dirt because of the bugs so I made this sensory dirt using 1 cup baking soda and ½ cup cocoa powder). The tray also has some beans which we pretended were seeds.
Carrot Playdough Mat
Print out this playdough mat. It’s a fairly simple idea. Have your child make the right number of vegetables to go with the words at the top. When they are done let them use their imagine for whatever else they would like to make!
Vegetable Cutting Practice
You can make this tray by getting several paint chips and cutting and decorating them to look like vegetables (carrot, cucumber, corn, and potato). Put the “vegetables” on the tray along with some scissors. Have your toddler use the scissors to cut on the lines of the paint chips.
Put “Seeds” in the “Dirt”
This toddler tray uses a popcorn box with brown construction paper glued on the top of it. There are also holes in the top of the popcorn box that are just big enough to fit some penne pasta. To the side is a bunch of penne pasta. Pretend the pasta are seeds to plant. Have your toddler put the pasta into the holes, then dump them out and do it again.
Fruit Puzzles
You can find these cute fruit puzzles from Amazon and they are perfect for our gardening theme. The puzzles aren’t too difficult since the pieces are thin, perfect for your toddler.
Gardening Toddler Book
I read this book at least once during the time that these trays are out. You can have your toddler color the pictures or look at the pictures as he turns the pages. Don’t expect your toddler to learn how to read by looking this book. This book is simply for exposure to words and letters and concepts of print.
Printables
Matching Cards (Garden Preschool Pack, part 1 page 4&5), Pre-Writing Practice (Garden Preschool Pack, part 1 page 6).
Featured Toy
Themed Books
Jack’s Garden by: Henry Cole
My Garden by: Kevin Henkes
In the Garden by: Elizabeth Spurr
Who’s Hiding? In the Garden by: Christiane Gunzi
Put Veggies in Basket
Knitted or plastic vegetables work best for this basket, but instead of using 3D vegetables, you can also just print these vegetable pictures in black and white and let your toddler color them before gathering them into the basket.
Plant Seeds
This tray uses more sensory dirt and some dried pinto beans. Show your toddler how to plant a seed (make a hole, put the seed in, then cover it with dirt).
