With the National Summer Library Book theme being ‘Dig into Reading’, I wanted to feature some of the great posts linked up to our Discover & Explore ‘Gardening with Kids ‘.
There are so many garden activities that will pair nicely with garden books for your summer reading list.
So we’ve chosen a few of our favorite kid-friendly garden ideas and listed some of our favorite garden reads for each one — we hope this will inspire some kids to get outside and plant something this year!
Favorite Kids Books & Garden Activities
Gardening isn’t just about growing vegetables — there’s all the fun of worms & insects, beautiful flowers, teaching kids about the responsibility of caring for something, helping them learn about the lifecycle of a plant and connecting kids with nature.
If it’s not quite planting season in your area, browse these Get Ready for Garden Season: 30 Crafts & Activities that kids will enjoy as they get ready to plant those seeds.
If you’re ready to start planting, we have some fun ideas that will encourage kids to explore the science behind gardening and pick up a few new books as they learn to be junior gardeners! We’re including affiliate links for the books we recommend and items that will make gardening season fun & easy.
Happy Birthday Author is an awesome book & activity site! The have dozens of ideas for great projects that pair up with kid books.
For gardening, they matched The Curious Garden 
Little Wonders’ Days created a wonderful Sensory Garden for kids by planting some wonderful herbs!
Growing herbs is always a fun activity for kids and there such a variety. Try these 12 popular Easy-to-Grow Culinary Herb Seeds
Herb plants usually grow quickly, can be used in the kitchen when cooking meals and they have a wonderful smell! Use this free printable How Fast Does My Plant Grow? as a fun way to track the plant’s height and growth.
I would pair this activity with Kid’s Herb Book, A: For Children of All Ages 
Teach Beside Me shared some excellent Tips for Gardening with Kids and ways to really get kids involved in the gardening process.
They also paired the tips with 12 Fun Books about Seeds including a few of our favorites — From Seed to Plant 
Related Activity: Books & Activities that Explore Seeds and Plants
For the Children introduced us to the world under the garden – Worms, snails & slugs!
It’s important for kids to understand that you can’t just put a plant in the ground and expect it to grow. There are many insects and small animals that help the soil and plant to thrive!
Pair some observation of these fun creatures with books such as
Are You a Snail? (Backyard Books)
In the Garden: Who’s Been Here? 
And The Educator’s Spin on It linked up a few great posts on how to grow root vegetables!
Growing carrots can be a little tricky and take a while but is certainly worth the work! We have tried carrots in our garden and they are pretty fun to grow and the kids loved to harvest them — it’s a little surprise each time you pull one from the ground.
If you’d like to actually SEE the carrots grow, try this Garden Root Viewer growing kit
While waiting for your carrots to grow, the kids would enjoy reading a few fun carrot books:
If your kids are interested in where seeds come from, try dissecting a flower and learning about pollination .
And be sure to stop by Fantastic Fun & Learning to see some of the cool science-related garden ideas that are being featured too.
MORE GARDENING ACTIVITIES
The Ultimate Guide to Gardening with Kids
10 Books to Inspire Kids to Grow a Garden
