Gardening with kids Soil Rocks! By Tania Moffat
Wally the worm helped us learn about the wonders of soil.
The kids were very keen to plant.
children about the importance of soil. Soil is the lifeblood of our planet. It
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not only heats and cools the earth, but soil is the foundation for our food, fuel and natural fibre production. Soil is responsible for filtering our water, for cycling nutrients for plants and plays a major role in many ecosystems. All of this information is more than a child can absorb at one time, but since we all need to start somewhere, I decided to try and share some knowledge. With the help of
32 • Summer 2015
ost kids love dirt. It was with this in mind that I set out to my son’s preschool to teach the
Finally, we get to play with dirt.
some of the associations who have put together information for children and classrooms to celebrate the International Year of the Soil, I created an interactive presentation and planned to have the children plant after we were done chat- ting. You can visit
fao.org/globalsoilpart- nership/iys-2015/en/ or
soils.org/IYS for more information on soil projects. The preschoolers were excited, prob-
ably because I promised them that we would get to play with soil at the end. We talked about how soil was made, if it had parents, how it works to cool the earth and provide nutrients for our plants
and homes for bugs, bacteria and fungi. The kids had started a vermicomposting bin in their classroom, and many also composted at home, so we were able to talk about the importance of compost- ing and soil conservation. I was excited to see how many preschoolers knew why there were trees planted along the edges of the farmer’s fields. The children had so many interesting ideas about soil and worms; it was great to see them sharing and getting involved. The best way to learn is of course is
by doing, so we all got our hands in the soil and planted lemon scented marigold
localgardener.net
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